Pseudo Gospel, Vol 1: Fly Me to the Moon
by Dee Arris
Summary: First segment of a revisionist story in which the action takes place largely in London. Priority on characterisation to distinguish my own cast from Anno's originals.
1. The 5th Kind, Impossible Things P1

**NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR & LEGAL DISCLAIMER:**

Inspired by _Neon__Genesis__Evangelion_ and _Rebuild__of__Evangelion_, which is copyright© Hideaki Anno, GAINAX, Studio Khara, _et__all_. 1995-2011.

All original characters herein are the intellectual property of the writer. Special thanks go out to Hikari, Anne, Ben and Em for the inspirations they provided. All music and cultural references cited are the property of their respective artists, authors, publishers, _etc._ and are used with the greatest respect. No profit was made by any party as a result of this writing.

**PSEUDO GOSPEL EVANGELION  
><strong>**Vol. 1: "FLY ME TO THE MOON"**

[E.S. Posthumus – _"__Ashielf __Pi__"_ – Cartographer, 2008]

Alternatively, YouTube user _geekyfandubs__'_ wonderfully rendered English adaptation of, _"__Cruel __Angel__'__s __Thesis,__"_ by Yoko Takahashi.

**Prologue  
><strong>"**_Antarctica, __2000__A.D._: The Fifth Kind"**

No matter how much preparation you put into it, nothing short of being a seal can prepare you for the sheer biting cold of Antarctica. Fields of pure, pristine ice stretched out in all directions, beyond the scope of human vision, like a living canvas waiting for the stroke of God's brush. Professor Oliver Haddo thought it an appropriate description. The cable car offered precious little warmth and even through their thick parkas, he and his three companions felt the harsh wind redden their ears and cut away the moisture from their skin. Haddo easily ignored all these organic complaints by casting his gaze upwards towards the peak of Mount Sidley. Base camp was situated a short distance from the volcano's maw and stood out starkly against the white of the tundra, its orange tents and green-clad staff darting in and out like rabbits through their burrow. Towering above that miniscule inkblot of civilisation was the Egg. Titanic, crystalline, plugging the volcano as if it were a cork. From here it was the same featureless white as its surroundings, but upon closer inspection, when touched, its surface rippled and flexed with a perpetuating aurora.

Doctors Mabon and Ceinwen Silence were the first to disembark from the cable car when it reached its terminus, followed by elderly Professor Fordyce and finally Haddo and his wife Leah. The four of them crossed the grounds to the main tent. Printed on the front, as with the other tents, was a uniform crimson emblem displaying a simplistic profile of a human brain. The frontal lobe curled into a stylised, _"__G,__"_ and emerging from it along the right side were the letters, _"__ehirn,__"_ in a no-frills typeface. The Silences wrinkled their noses at it, not for the word itself, rather the fact they had not been allowed to name their own group. Haddo seemed to be bending over backwards to please whoever their benefactors were without question, which contradicted everything they knew about the man. Fordyce had started some absolutely blazing rows over their insistence to remain behind the scenes, convinced it was all some kind of cover-up for a mob operation. It only took a quick glimpse at the steep dome of the curious irregularity, the Egg, to remind them why their association had not collapsed in on itself. The five of them went inside to meet the last two of their number.

Standing behind a bank of machinery, jotting notes on a P.D.A. was Doctor Sternsinger of the Austrian Institute of Technology who was brought onboard the project by their benefactors, and to her right was Doctor Barnabas F. Creed, nursing a mug of coffee between his mitten-covered palms. Only a year previous Creed's research into theoretical physics regarding new kinds of energy had made him unpopular in scientific circles and was the target of much name-calling by the journals. Needless to say he was not the only one wondering about his recruitment, but took solace in the idea that obviously someone, at least one person, believed in his life's work. To that end, he did not question it. He was a man of few words anyway, so nobody thought this strange. He nodded his acknowledgement as they came inside, shaking hands only with Fordyce, whom he had the pleasure of first meeting during their student days.

"I see the committee got you out of your shell," said Fordyce good-naturedly. "What'd they use this time, crowbars?"

"Dynamite, I think," replied Creed. "I'm amazed they let you out of the old folks' home without your carer."

"You reckon they'd want this old hell-raiser around people with sensitivities?" smirked Mabon, pulling the woollen hat off his shaven head and stuffing it in his parka pocket.

"Less of the old," said Fordyce, cuffing the younger man while Creed poured them each a cup of coffee from a tartan thermos.

"Yvonne," said Leah Haddo, offering a hand. Yvonne Sternsinger looked up from her notes, brushed some of her reddish curls out of her face, and accepted the gesture with a sour smile.

"Leah," she responded, because they had already dispensed with formalities and agreed to call each other by their given names on the day they were all brought together. That was five or six months ago for her, but for the rest it was closer to a decade, when Fordyce was a university teacher in Edinburgh and Creed had just moved overseas to obtain funding for his doomed Super Solenoid Foundation.

"It's nice to see you out here with us," said Leah, "we really thought your work in Austria would keep you occupied."

"My team made progress faster than expected," explained Yvonne nonchalantly, not believing that her work on the MAGI project was important to the topic at hand, "anyway, I didn't want to turn around fifteen years from now and realise I missed this."

"Has there been any change?" asked Haddo.

"U.T.," Creed reminded her.

"Thank you, Barnabas," Yvonne nodded. "Our sound equipment did manage to pick up a rather interesting piece of evidence, if you'll please all gather 'round…" They did, and she pressed a switch on the console in front of her. A monitor lit up with a green sine wave displayed on its surface. A few seconds passed in absolute silence, then sharp points began to rise and drop, always at three second intervals. The volume and pattern were both constant, and when they realised they were listening to a heartbeat, the five arrivals were stunned into speechlessness. Fordyce turned his head slightly towards Haddo and immediately recognised the look on his former student's face. The flash in his eyes, the way his smile nearly split his face like a taut razor wire. It was a look of triumph.

"So there _is_ something alive inside it," he said, maybe a bit unnecessarily, but it eased the tension of the words building up in all their throats.

"We were right to call it the Egg," noted Ceinwen. "So can we estimate when it'll hatch?"

"Not within a satisfactory timeframe," said Yvonne.

"Can we crack it open ourselves?" asked Haddo eagerly.

"We've tried," said Barnabas, voice never rising above a level monotone, "men have been at it using high-intensity flames and diamond- and haverite-tipped drills for days. Even sitting in the volcano seems to have done absolutely nothing. The core temperature's as low as it ever was. We've yet to even figure out what the wretched thing's made out of."

"Well, whatever's in there," Ceinwen sighed, exasperated, "I guess it's not coming out until it's ready, and we apparently have no possible way of telling when that'll be."

"Soon, I'm sure," Haddo murmured, turning back to the opening in the tent and the residual glow from the Egg coming over the caldera, "I can feel it in the air." Some of them chuckled to hear him make such an unscientific statement, but Fordyce and Barnabas did not share in their humour. Haddo pushed his dark glasses up the bridge of his nose with the index and middle fingers of his left hand and said, "Excellent work, everyone. We'll begin preparations for the contact operation on the Key at 0800 tomorrow. Good night, ladies, gentlemen."

Beginning at one minute past eight o'clock the next morning the Egg hatched. In the hours that succeeded it, the Earth was jolted violently from its axis. Three billion people died.

The event went down in history as the Second Impact.

**Chapter 1  
><strong>"**_London, __2015__A.D._: Impossible Things, Part One"**

The world was slowly recovering.

Nature was reasserting herself to repair the damage done to her eco-systems, but the oceans were still swollen, prompting the erection of protective sea-walls around the lower-sitting landmasses. Great patches of it had been dyed blood red and were no longer able to support life. Temperatures drastically shifted all around the globe. Some climates were only affected marginally, others more distinctly. Japan, for example, fast became a tourist favourite for its permanent summers. Cooling rain broke up the droughts that once riddled Africa. Natural disasters that followed in the tumultuous years following the event had forced an uneasy friendship between the governments, who had to put aside their pettier rivalries to focus on the great work of rebuilding their wounded planet.

In that respect, Second Impact was the firm hand that mankind needed. Conflicts still arose, as they probably always shall, but even more militant nations were agreed they had felt the wrath of a vengeful God, or at least that was the Church's stand. The alternative theory was a severe meteor collision, hence the popularly used name, First Impact being the event that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Whatever the reason, as eye-opening as it would doubtlessly be if someone could prove it beyond scrutiny, it presently meant nothing to the adolescent boy sitting on the steps outside the Borough High Street exit to London Bridge tube station. In his simple black zip-up jacket and battered trainers he looked at home in the metropolis, but he was really overwhelmed by it. Back in Cardiff he barely grasped local geography, so why the hell was he here in the easiest city in the world to get lost in? He could find a hotel, or at least go down the road to a café and grab a sandwich, but if he got out of seeing distance of the station he knew he might never find his way back to it. A feeling of inadequacy welled in the pit of his gut.

Where was his pick-up? The one with the nice tits who led him on with a time and date scrawled on the reverse of a vaguely promiscuous holiday snap included with his summons?

"This is dumb," he lamented quietly, hugging his rucksack to his chest. He checked over both shoulders to make sure nobody was watching him, then fished the picture out of the inside pocket of his jacket. The woman in it was standing on a beach. Ibiza or the Seychelles, he wasn't overly certain, but she was wearing trendy sunglasses, a summer hat and a showy swimsuit, and holding a fancy smoothie in one hand. She was attractive, certainly not supermodel proportions, but a far stretch from plain. Sort of comfortably in the middle. The words, _**"**__**See **__**you **__**there! **__**Love **__**Abbey!**__**"**_ were scrawled in black marker to the left of the woman alongside his initials, with love-hearts under the exclamation points and a line arcing cheekily towards her exposed cleavage. He thought it was cute. A little bit like something out of _Carry__On__Camping_. When he spotted the black car pulled up by the kerb, he stuffed the picture clumsily in the pocket of his jeans and started to get up, stopping at a half-squat upon the realisation the people climbing out were most definitely _not_ Abigail Creed. They couldn't be there for him. Not a chance. He was just being paranoid, intimidated by his environment.

"Michael Prester Silence?" asked one. He said nothing.

"Come with us, please," said the other. The politeness was a formality. He said nothing. The second man made a grab for his arm. He would have had him if not for a sudden intense quake beneath their feet. Something clicked in Michael's brain, and though he was confused by the uproar, he decided to seize this opportunity to escape, pounding his way through the crowds of Londoners and along the pavement towards Great Dover Street. The agents, to their credit professionals, were quick to find their balance and chase after him.

[Klaxons – _"__Atlantis __to __Interzone__"_ – Myths of the Near Future, 2007]

"Get your arse back here, kid!" one of them yelled.

"Kiss it first, slap-head!" Michael shot back, adding a meek, "Oh, shit," when he saw how much this agitated the closer of the two, who was indeed as bald as a bollard. Michael made a frantic scramble off the pavement, across the street and down an adjoining road, leaving the man to stumble painfully into a lamp-post. He also incited some very colourful language from the drivers who screeched to a halt to avoid running him over. This was nuts! Who were they? MI5? 6? Flying Squad? What had he done wrong? Well, apart from nicking a few sweets from the supermarket when he was eight, and sneaking his own food into the cinema, and that one time he did pot at his mate Ianto's birthday bash last year. None of that seemed to him that it would ruffle Military Intelligence's feathers, so either there was someone at dispatch who was really bored or leaving crafty Haribo packets on the floor had been declared a violation of the cleaning lady's civil rights. He almost tripped a couple of times, since he was still clutching his bag to his chest, and since he did not want to look back over his shoulder, he could not tell if he had time to slip it onto his back before the suits reached him. The third time he actually did lose his balance and went rolling along the tarmac.

He came to a stop beside a light blue car. It was a Nissan Z, a bit beaten, probably from the '70s, the ones with the big, round, sunken headlights. The driver's side door popped open and out stepped Abbey Creed, wearing a bright red uniform of vaguely military design and a beret on her raven-haired head.

"Get in!" she yelled. Michael knew it was a very silly thing to hop in a car with a woman he never really met, even if she was a friend of the family as he was told, but with the agents rapidly encroaching on him, he easily deemed the lesser of two evils and did as he was told. The car peeled away before the doors were shut. Michael curled up on the back seat when he heard bullets ring off the rear of the vehicle. He gathered up the courage to peer through the window and saw the men heading in the direction of their own car. One was talking actively into a featureless black mobile 'phone.

Another quake helped him find his voice. "What the hell was that about!" he shrieked.

"Exciting, ennit?" Abbey beamed at him. "Buckle up an' hold on!" Michael would have protested had the car not skidded so suddenly into the next street, plastering his face comically across the window. After a few moments, they were travelling at a high but steadier pace. "Now what were you saying, love?" asked the driver. Michael unstuck his mush from the fibreglass and shook it back into shape, gingerly testing every contour with his fingertips.

"What…?" he started, but she had already taken one hand off the steering wheel and was fishing for something in the glove compartment. She found what she was looking for and passed it over her shoulder to him.

"Might wanna read through that," she said. It was a green book wider than it was long and made from a material that felt like plasticine but had the consistency of ordinary paper. Printed on the front cover was a big red emblem resembling one half of a fig leaf, tilted at a downward angle, and four large letters in a Roman font spilling out of the left edge, which was flat. Framing the image in two crescents was the phrase, _"__God__'__s __in __his __Heaven. __All__'__s __right __with __the __world.__"_

Michael read the name composed by the four letters, "NERV. So you really do work for my godfather's agency." He imagined it should put his mind at ease to know that, but it didn't. All he really knew about it was that his godfather was a long time colleague of his late parents, and that they were involved in some kind of government contract. He was spared all the boring details, by which he meant all the details full stop.

"We're a private security service of sorts," Abbey said wryly, "sanctioned by Her Majesty's government and funded by the U.N. Those Military Intelligence gorillas desperately want us under their jurisdiction. Of course it'd never happen through proper channels, so they wanted to use you to coerce us."

"What if they _had_ caught me?" Michael dared to ask.

"They wouldn't have," Abbey insisted, "but hypothetically, we never negotiate with bullies. Ever."

Michael gulped and decided to change the subject, "What are you sanctioned to do?"

"Remember that quake a few minutes ago?"

"Yeah."

"That's not what we're sanctioned to handle."

"Oh."

"But what _caused_ the quake's a different story."

She might have continued if not for a sudden outburst from the public tannoy system. Small circular holes opened up along the length of the pavement on either side and the speakers grew up on metal stalks, each easily about twenty feet in height.

A crackly, recorded voice emitted in a cheery tone that could only be described as patronising, "Attention, everyone. As of 3.30 p.m. today a state of emergency has been declared for the Central London area. All citizens are advised to head to their designated shelters or evacuate the area within twenty minutes or risk exposure. Barriers will be erected as per regulation ordered by the Home Office. We repeat…"

The message droned on for a second time. The corner of Abbey's mouth twitched. "Whoever they got to recite that wants a slap. Right in the gob," she said, taking one hand off the steering wheel to mime-smack someone with the flat of her palm. Michael managed a quiet chuckle and the woman smiled. Outside, people swiftly disappeared down alleyways and into nondescript doors between the buildings, or clambered onto busses and into cars faster than usual. Abbey, not missing a beat, manoeuvred her Z-car onto the vehicle-path of London Bridge just as the air was filled with a thunderous, "_wohm-wohm-wohm.__"_ Michael bent double and covered his ears as the repetitive snarls of mighty engines vibrated in his skull. He risked a peek, and his eyes bulged in their sockets as a squadron of helicopter gun-ships swooped in above them.

"Why's the Air Force here?" he asked. "They wouldn't be doing exercises this far into the city, surely?"

"Why don't we find out for ourselves?" came the cryptic reply as Abbey brought the Z-car to the side of the vehicle-path, so as not to hinder fellow motorists. Leaving the motor running, she got out a pair of binoculars. Michael remembered the alert and regretted his question, because he now had a very dreadful sense of exposure.

A dull hum emanated from the water below and everything around them; the river, the bridge, the car itself, even the fillings in his teeth, rattled. Something was growing up from the belly of the Thames. Something big. Gargantuan. Michael was about to find out _exactly_ why the Air Force were there. The mystifying part would be deciding if he could believe it.

XXX

It was an act of incompetence to alert the civilians with only moments to spare. Once they caught sight of the invader, there was sure to be a panic. The Ministry of Defence had dispatched troops to aid the police in the task of evacuating the danger-zone, but considering this stretched from around Paddington to Blackfriars, from Birdcage Walk up as far as Regent's Street, it looked much easier on paper. Understandably the decade-and-a-half the enemy had given them allowed the brass to develop a certain complacency towards the enormity of the threat. A war council were assembled at Whitehall, including two men dubbed experts on affairs of this arcane nature among their number. The younger of the two wore amber-tinted glasses and a white jacket and gloves over a seamless black outfit. His hair could do with combing, and his jaw was accentuated by a beard, while his elder deputy was clean-shaven and presentable in a maroon uniform of the same manufacture. The two sat, unreadable and almost grimly quiet, as they watched the wall-mounted screens with their counterparts from the various defensive branches.

The abomination on the monitors tore the Apache battalion to shreds in record time. It was bombarded with the very latest in hard light photon weaponry and missiles from accompanying aerodynes, but still it was unscathed. It just continued its lurching path along the length of the Thames, smashing Tower Bridge like a rotten wood gate and raining debris, vehicles and pedestrians into the unforgiving, overlapping currents.

"They've not lost their edge," said the bespectacled man with more than a hint of smugness. His fingers were knitted across his face, supported by his elbows on the table, obscuring the devilish smirk on his chiselled face.

The creature raised one gangly arm as long as the rest of it, the proportions making it even more hideous, and a sharp bone protruding from its elbow slid easily into its flesh, only to emerge from its palm and spear the nearest aerodyne, crashing it into an Apache. They both tumbled into the river and were crushed under the weight of the thing's toe-less foot.

"Mobilise all available Challenger-3s and Stormer teams!" the Chief of General Staff barked into a telephone. "It cannot be allowed to get onto land! I don't care if the C3's not set for deployment yet, this is an emergency situation! Do it or I'll have your plums!" He slammed the receiver down roughly in its cradle and looked to the rest. "Now we'll give that hell-spawn a taste of _real_ power."

The bespectacled man ignored this act of posturing and turned to the most important figure at the table. "Milord Secretary," he said with utmost respect, "though I don't doubt the Chief of Staff's men or their abilities, it was my agency who were given authority in these situations. Why not allow my people to go on standby, should the Challengers fail?"

"An upstart group of bookworms and shut-ins?" the Chief took the bait. "NERV, indeed! A tragic waste of time and resources that would have been better used in our overseas campaigns! I ask that these men, not even military personnel, be removed from the council room this instant!"

"Hear, hear!" chorused the First Sea Lord over his seventh cup of coffee for the day, along with several other indignant men.

"Enough," scolded the Secretary of State for Defence, "we are men of prestige. Now's not the time to squabble like wretched schoolboys, for God's sake." He turned to the bespectacled man and his deputy. "Professor Haddo, Professor Fordyce, the Prime Minister and Her Majesty have both spoken to me favourably of your organisation. You are fully certain that you're equipped to engage this enemy?"

"That, milord," replied Oliver Haddo, pushing his glasses up the length of his nose, "is why NERV exists."

"We already have the backing of the appropriate authorities," Fordyce put in, "all that remains is the necessary permission to act."

The Chief of Staff excused himself from the room on pretence of lavatorial obligations, but once he was out of earshot, he took a mobile from his pocket and rang a number. "Prepare an N² imploder," he ordered in hushed tones, "we're going to hit the bastard with the strongest controlled blast known to man."

At the exact same moment, Oliver Haddo said into the telephone on the table, "Doctor Sternsinger, ready Unit-00 for sortie."

A regiment of experimental C3 combat tanks and Stormer tracked platforms rumbled along either side of the river. Some took up positions on the nearest available Thames crossing that would give them distance to make their long-range weapons effective, which was Southwark. The rushed evacuation procedures had made Cannon Street Railway Bridge unusable due to the sheer amount of emergency activity occurring there. The priority of those stationed at Southwark was to halt the target's rampage as far from the tracks as possible, limiting the volume of displaced water that would wash up and cause floods. The on-site officer in command gave the order and the army unleashed their entire collective fury against the creature. It stumbled, dazed but somehow protected against the onslaught. Any solid projectiles detonated harmlessly before entering range while photon energy bolts dissipated pathetically in mid-air.

It brought up its arms again, treble-digit hands splayed, and caught two incoming Storm Shadows. One split like tissue paper through its fingers, the other stretched its arm back behind its head, or what constituted its head. Its torso was a single bulk, flat on top with a small, white face resembling a bird's skull just above its chest, in which was embedded a glimmering scarlet orb framed by a dozen external ribs. The ruined cruise missile fell into the river and exploded, belching water onto the roads. An unearthly low rumble that might almost have been a growl rose from inside the monster. It shifted its centre of gravity, pitching the second missile into the C3s, demolishing them as well as a prodigious section of the south bank. It let its hands dip into the water, cooling its scalded skin. Then a light shone behind its pinprick holes, and a massive surge of energy cut through the river on every side of it, slicing the remaining vehicles and the soldiers manning them to ribbons.

The bridges trembled on their foundations. Some of the people onboard the trains started praying or huddling their families close.

"Photon throwers, plasma fragmentation grenades," the Minister for Technology croaked as he watched from the war room, "even guided missiles and artillery fire. We've given it our best."

"Don't feel bad, Minister," said Professor Fordyce, "the Angel is using an Absolute Terror Field. Conventional weapons stand no chance against it."

The Secretary of State for Defence sighed, rubbed his temples and turned to the man in the white coat. "Your move, Haddo. I hope you haven't overestimated your own capabilities. So far as I've seen, that monster's an immovable object."

"We will meet it with an unstoppable force," chuckled Oliver Haddo. "Your cooperation is appreciated, milord. Please inform the Prime Minister that we will soon have this situation well under control. Ensure the area is properly converted to civil fortress formation."

"Doctor Sternsinger's on the line," said Fordyce, passing him the telephone receiver.

"Launch Unit 00," said Haddo.

XXX

Michael wound down the car window as fast as he could and hung his head out to retch up his guts. The flares of light caused by combusting vehicles blinded him, the bangs deafened him and the unseen waves the monster was sending out nauseated him as much as the stench of gunpowder, O-zone and death. The bridge was engulfed in a shadow, and Michael turned his gaze upwards to stare in horror at the towering abomination. It didn't seem to notice them, if it did it might have let them live a little longer, but he knew it would just plough through the supports, crippling the bridge and sending him and Abbey both into their watery graves.

"Ooh, lookee!" his companion whooped. "Here's the best bit!"

Michael gawked as the second impossible thing that day popped up from behind some buildings.

[The Prodigy – _"__Invaders __Must __Die__"_ – Invaders Must Die, 2009]

The new arrival was a head shorter than the monster. It stood with a slightly hunched over posture. Its frame was lithe and pliant, with slender limbs and a broad chest. From top to toe it was covered in bright orange, segmented armour, with plenty of discernible cusps and flections, so onlookers could see how it slotted together over the layer of spongy mail underneath. A glassy, black patch on its leg shoulder was marked with the designation, _"__EVA __UNIT __00,__"_ in neon green text. Printed in a thinner, narrower font across its left pectoral was the name, _"__LAHASH.__"_ Coming out of its back was a thick, brown cable that trailed away through the streets like some enormous earthworm. The head was encased in an open-fronted helmet, and was devoid of facial features save for a long, angular chin and a single red eye.

"Now that Angel's got it comin'!" Abbey grinned.

"Angel?" Michael squeaked, befuddled, scared and excited all at once. "An Angel and a robot are about to have a fight over the Thames…is this _normal_ in London?"

"Makes you wish you'd moved here earlier, eh?" said Abbey.

"Uh…"

"Let's get out of range. Can't distract the pilot by sitting here like a pair of lemons, can we?" Flooring the accelerator, she made a beeline for the marginally more stable ground just beyond London Bridge's far gate. The sizes of the combatants meant that even blocks away they could still watch the sparks fly relatively unencumbered. Lahash stepped off the platform that had ferried it to the surface and took several heaving strides towards the Angel. It descended into the river up to its waist and hefted its weapon, a double-barrelled firearm of a type Michael had never seen before even in action films, and he had seen plenty of those. It loosed a round of incendiary bolts, and for a moment it looked like they ignited short of their destination just like the previous attempts, but upon closer inspection, there were small shapes materialising just in time to defend the beast; a series of hexagonal ripples, fizzling in and out of vision with great rapidity. The Angel blinked in a manner that was almost cute, casting the whole of its attention on this latest antagonist.

Lahash lowered its gun, the pilot deciding it was a useless practise, and its eye rotated in its socket as if considering its options. It raised its free hand and the fingertips shone with pale yellow energy as it called up its own, more vibrant version of the Angel's protective barrier. The two fields met in the middle and Michael knew that at this point, the outcome would depend upon which one crumbled first. Another helicopter broke through the cloud carrying a white, keg-shaped device on one of its hard-points. Abbey's face twisted in confusion. She peered through her binoculars and at the moment she recognised the helicopter's payload, the colour drained from her cheeks.

"Idiots!" she cried. "They're dropping an N² mine! Get down!" She pinned her teenaged charge to the floor of his seat as the device was dropped straight towards the Angel. Lahash had also spotted the incoming object, pulled itself free from the fight and broke into a dash back towards land, but the water slowed its pace. The device went off in a magnificent outpour of fire and light, and the resultant shockwaves brutally shoved Lahash forward. It crashed down onto the street, flattening barriers and levelling two warehouses. Abbey and Michael cried out as the Z-car was sent rolling one way from the initial explosion, then was sucked back through the air and bent against a lamp-post as the mine's delayed implosion reaction drew it in. They were pelted with debris, pipes, bricks, wooden planks and even lumps of tarmac and scraps of rubbish. Lahash's weight kept it from being hurled into the heart of the implosion, but it was still dragged enough to collapse belly-up in the water.

XXX

"_Ha!__"_ boomed the Chief of General Staff, pointing a fat finger at Haddo. "I knew you were all bluster! Your oversized tin-can did beggar all against that thing, but my lads proved why it's the job of the real Armed Forces to defend crown and country!" There was a deal of protest from the other military commanders who had not thought of it first. The Secretary was livid, even outraged, and was soon caught up in a ferocious argument over insubordination. When the smoke cleared from their screens the noise was sucked into a devastated abyss. The Angel had indeed sustained damaged, but was still standing. The mine had caused more harm to Unit 00 and the surrounding area, turning a whole section of the Thames into a near-perfect circle. Gills opened wide in the monster's chest, raking in as much oxygen as they could. Its porcelain face cracked and splintered apart, a new one growing in as fast as a shark grows new teeth.

"It can't be," choked the Chief.

"But it is," said Haddo crossly. "All your stunt did was delay the inevitable." He addressed the rest of the conclave and the Secretary. "Gentlemen, my people will continue to endeavour to stop this threat. On the off-chance we can't, well you all saw who exactly ballsed it up for you by compromising us."

"NERV will be submitting a formal complaint against the Chief of General Staff, Sir Neville Festing," said Fordyce gruffly, "for gross misconduct and unnecessary endangerment before the week is out. Happy birthday." The men left to plot their next move. This left a very flustered Secretary thankful he wasn't going to be for the chop and a very nervous Chief dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief and bumbling his way through what nobody could work out was an apology or an excuse.

**CLOSING STATEMENT:**

To purists, I understand if you would have preferred to see Anno's original cast playing their traditional roles, but I hope, and would appreciate if, you still enjoy my take on the material. I respect the fact I can't please everyone but if you don't like it, at least don't ruin it for people who did by filling the review section with flames. Any constructive criticism or suggestions for future chapters is both encouraged and welcomed.

In the meantime!

The Angel continues its rampage through London, and while paramedics race to rescue the pilot of Unit 00, NERV reveals its secret weapon. Michael faces his godfather and is forced him to make a choice that will forever affect the course of his life. The great battle for the Earth, fifteen years in the making, begins now.


	2. Impossible Things P2

**Chapter 2  
><strong>"**_London, __2015__A.D._: Impossible Things, Part Two"**

In the setting sun, the abomination stood like a sculpture. It was a jet black silhouette, its mass surrounded by a glow. The arms hung limp at its sides. The only movements it made were a rhythmic breathing, its chest puffing in and out with a gentle pumping hum. Its gills, easing its processes as it regenerated its torn skin, were moving with a relaxed beat. Its shoulders, chest and upper back were engulfed in a bubbling, oozing mass of scar tissue, excess ichor pouring down into the Thames like water from the world's most grotesque fountain. Its face broke and fell away as stony particles as its replacement pushed its way through, skin splitting and retracting around it. After a while, Michael couldn't stand to look at it and pulled himself back inside the Z-car. He had since moved his way to the front passenger seat, and as they rattled their way through winding streets, he tried to occupy his mind by reading the NERV book. Unfortunately he was too on-edge, so the words just blurred in front of his eyes.

"Abbey?" he eventually asked.

"_Mm-hmm?_" she responded. She was facing straight ahead but her eyes were flitting from side to side as if searching.

"Am I going to be working for NERV?" he asked.

"That's the plan," she said. "Weren't you told why we arranged for your training for a whole year?"

"My grandfather just told me that year with the Air Cadets was to get me out of the house," he told her, "so I wouldn't start vegetating. I was all right at it, but I don't think I had the steel to keep it up."

"Truth is we were keeping an eye on you that whole time," said the driver. "Bringing you in without any idea of what you'd be doing wouldn't be very clever. It was the boss's idea and your grandfather agreed with him. The basis for pilot training with us is derived from what you learned at home, with a few little allowances, of course, but you'll get the hang of those quick enough."

Michael allowed himself to absorb that. The boss was obviously his godfather. He had no clue his grandfather was involved in this madness as well, or that his single year of training with the cadets in the 30F Squadron was for some ulterior purpose. He wanted to be angry, but he couldn't. It was nothing new for his life to be decided for him, after all he had no ambitions he could speak of right now. Certainly he'd considered a few, but his ability to commit was non-existent. If not for others he may never have even made the decision to get out of bed in the mornings. The best he could come up with to say, in that light, was, "Oh."

"What's the matter with you?" Abbey asked curiously. "I know you're probably narked off about all this secret service crap but it's not like we could say all this out in the open before we were ready. Still, the kids I know, hell the kids I grew up with, would be going crazy for a chance like this."

"Maybe," Michael gave her a half-hearted smile, "but I think my whole world's gone crazy for me today." Something clicked into place in his mind. "Wait, what am I gonna be doing with you lot again?"

"It's our stop," said Abbey, swerving the car down a side road and into an R.A.C. service garage. It looked to Michael like any other garage. There were other cars raised over pits so men could easily work on their undersides, some tools were scattered haphazardly around, piles of tyres, a desk over in the corner strewn with papers, and a small wooden table with a few empty coffee mugs on it. A lone engineer sat at the desk, his feet crossed on top wearing only oil-stained socks, and he was reading a copy of _The __Daily __Star_. Abbey's car did need some repairs since being turned over on the bridge, pieces of the chassis were held on with packing tape and UHU, but now did not strike Michael as the appropriate time for that. He found the engineer's nonchalance disconcerting as well. How had he missed the fight between the two titans or at least what kind of industrial-strength valium was he using?

"Take us down, Paul," Abbey called to the engineer.

"Rightchoo are, love," replied Paul in a thick accent, without taking his eyes off his newspaper. He reached underneath the desk and thumbed a switch. A loud, _"__vweeep,__"_ wailed from all around them, and a light on the wall flashed amber, the bulbs revolving like the emergency signals on a police car. Michael felt a jolt, and the floor beneath the Z-car began to descend. Abbey relaxed in her seat, hands nestled behind her head. She was totally at peace with the world. They went much lower than Michael believed possible, past layers of concrete foundation and soil broken up by subterranean cabling, then into a tiled corridor that stretched on for miles. It was green-and-white and reminded him of hospitals. More lights were mounted along the walls, and in place of a floor was a wide conveyor belt, which their platform tipped them onto. The car was whooshed along at a brisk, steady pace for a while, until the end of the corridor opened up in a wave of orangey warmth.

What Michael saw next was really quite beautiful. The conveyor passed them through a transparent, acrylic glass tube, one of several he noticed, down through the heart of a vast cavernous space as big as, or perhaps even bigger, than the entirety of the city above their heads. It was lit by a pale, yellow-white luminescence originating from somewhere he could not pinpoint, but it gave him the impression of a permanent sunrise. A mile or so beneath, the floor of the cavern was covered by a self-contained environment. He could make out a lush forest with a river, and grassy plains, and even a collection of buildings at the shore of a lake. In the middle of the lake was a statue of a two-headed man. His left head was a grinning man wearing a bowl-shaped hat with wings on it, while the right was a bird with a flexible neck and a long, curved beak. Michael thought it was a hummingbird, but he would later learn it was an ibis. The bird-side arm was clutching some papyrus scrolls against his chest, while the human-side arm was clutching a trumpet of impractical length, so the mouthpiece was level with his ears and the horn gracing his ankles.

On the opposite shore of the lake to the buildings was a gold pyramid. Two raised motorway bridges connected it to a Persian ziggurat, and coming out of the top of that were a number of thick, crystalline pipes that coiled around each other as they shot up towards the lofty ceiling, plunging into the inverted streets of London, which was hanging over them. Michael had heard of Geo-Fronts before, but never imagined he would live to see one. As he pressed himself to the window to stare out in wonderment, he did not notice Abbey talking actively into her mobile 'phone. Eventually, the tube took them inside one of the less purposeful-seeming buildings and the conveyor belt finally jarred to a halt at the entrance of a large car-park. Abbey started up the motor and drove down a short slope, and parked between a support column and a cherry red Jaguar XK8.

"Who here owns a Jag?" Michael asked, giving an appreciative whistle. Abbey just snorted derisively.

"You grandfather sent you with a file, right?" she asked. He nodded and fished around in his schoolbag, retrieving a bound bundle of paper, which he handed across to her. "Well, let's go," she said pleasantly, "if we're quick we can be where we need to in plenty of time." Michael made a hesitant whimper in his throat, then he got out with her and they headed deeper into the facility.

XXX

Enchanting and elaborate as the pyramid, known by the rococo name, _"__Central __Dogma,__"_ was, they had passed those escalators at least twice. Abbey floundered an apology as she struggled with her map, and to keep himself from having a panic attack because of how irrefutably lost they were, Michael focussed on his NERV handbook. A lot of it was legalities or went over his head altogether, but there were parts that he found genuinely interesting, mostly the rundown of the agency's real history and the number of bases it occupied worldwide, all of which were located in other Geo-Fronts. Abbey made a decisive, "Ah!" noise as they found a lift and got in. She thumbed the button for floor B-30. The lift stopped at B-28. The doors slid open, and standing there waiting for them was a tall woman, a couple of years older than Abbey, and quite beautiful in a clinical fashion, like a high priestess. Michael instantly recognised her as a figure of authority.

Her shoulder-length hair was platinum blonde and arranged to perfection. She had high, dark eyebrows and intelligent eyes of watery grey. There was a mole on her left cheek and she had jasper-coloured gemstone earrings. She was wearing a dark blue jumper with a chunky pull-ring of indeterminate purpose on the neck, a black skirt, stockings on her legs that would make Cyd Charisse stop for a second glance, and high-heels the same hue as the Jag that could only belong to her. Hung around her neck on a beaded chain was an I.D. card stating her name was Doctor Therese Sternsinger. Stern was on the dot.

"Hi, Therry," Abbey squeaked, faltering under the scientist's icy gaze.

"Don't call me that," the blonde told her, and ushered her and Michael out of the lift. They went down another corridor where the walls and ceiling were covered by paintings of angels (the proper Biblical kind), demons, saints and allegorical sinners. Michael had seen photographs of the Sistine Chapel in school, and though he didn't think he was much of an art critic he did consider these to be just as grand.

"Why do you insist on wasting my time, Captain?" demanded the scientist, her expression never changing despite her tone. "I hope you appreciate that at this juncture we're short on time and manpower, not to mention we're in the middle of a sodding crisis we should've been better prepared for. I had to cut my maintenance routine on Unit 01 to come find you."

Abbey gave a mumbled apology, and Therese sighed. She looked over her shoulder at Michael, who was shuffling along several steps behind. His nose was still in the handbook despite the relative velocity they were moving at, so he only picked up a few snippets of their conversation. Apparently Unit 00's pilot was successfully retrieved but badly injured, and the machine was placed in stasis while repairs were affected. Therese was lamenting the idiocy of deploying a prototype, then reported that the Angel's wounds were healing faster than anticipated. Unit 01, whatever that was, was equipped with standard level B-type gear, which he guessed was bad, and the probability of the damned thing even functioning was 0.000000001% ("Still a fraction better than zero," Therese hastened to add), which he guessed was even worse. The techies cleverly dubbed the event, _"__O9,__"_ on the suggestion of a team-member who was a student of Japanese mysticism, citing a folkloric dæmon. None of it made a jot of sense to Michael, who chalked it up to NERV's unique brand of jargon.

They took a hydraulic lift down to a boat, which ferried them across a pool of reflective pink liquid, ascended a flight of metal stairs, went through a door, and then there was nothing but pure darkness. When the lights came on, Michael yelped and rightly so. He was in yet another huge room. One with a vault-ceiling, and made entirely from polished green metal. He had seen a few war films on television, so the first thing Michael thought of was the interior of a U-boat service bunker. The same pink liquid filled the room up to the level of a catwalk, on which he stood with Abbey to his right and Therese to his left. From above, it might have looked like a green pathway in the middle of a bright pink carpet, it was so undisturbed. A row of tinted windows was high up on the far wall, and men in boiler suits darted along balconies or up and down ladders as they went about their work. This room's occupant was certainly no U-boat. It was the last and most shocking impossible thing Michael would see that day.

He was staring into a giant, purple face. Its armoured cranium was streamlined, skull-like, a bayonet of a horn with a green stripe near its base stretched high above him from between its milky eyes, which peered out of a slit visor. Uncomfortably he thought the thing was staring right at him. Into him. The head was mounted on a thick neck with flexible orange material that reminded him of leathery, reptilian skin. The shoulders of the horrific robot were bracketed by the catwalk. Michael realised that the bunker was in fact a gantry, the walls interconnected by moveable like a rocket's launch tower. He started flipping through the pages of his NERV handbook, until he was assured by Therese that it wouldn't provide him with any answers.

"This is mankind's ultimate weapon against the Angel menace," she said with a proud flourish, "the test-type of a synthetic life-form developed right here in our laboratories. Her name is Evangelion Unit 01. Codenamed Behemoth."

Michael repeated the name in a whisper.

"And you, Michael Prester Silence," boomed a gruff voice over the tannoy, "will pilot it." All three people on the catwalk looked up and saw a tall, wiry man standing behind the row of windows. He was in his forties, with short, messy hair and a beard. He wore a dark, seamless uniform, gloves and a pair of tinted glasses over his eyes, but even through them they could feel his intense gaze. His skin was a pigment which denoted a degree of East Asian heritage, and he held himself with total authority, confidence and most importantly, control. Michael recognised him, even though it was close to five years since their last meeting.

"Godfather," he croaked. The gravity of the man's words sank in. "Me?" he snapped. "You want me to get in that…that thing and fight?"

"Correct," said Haddo. "It's what you were brought here to do. It is the legacy of your parents."

"My parents?"

"Your mother and father's contributions were a vital factor in making the EVA project a reality," said Therese, trying to be reassuring. "All you have to do is sit in the seat. You'll be instructed on the rest." Michael looked at her, helplessly and confused. He was glad when Abbey found her voice first, even if it wasn't quite what he would have said.

"He's never even seen an EVA before," she protested, "he will recognise the controls, but how can we know he'll be able to synchronise with it?"

"Listen to yourself, Captain Creed," Therese shot back, "there is nobody else we can count on now. Rhea's lying half-dead in the I.C.U. and our other candidates are too out of reach to be of any help here."

"Is this what killed my parents?" Michael was staring straight up at his godfather, ignoring the two arguing women. "Everyone said they died in an accident! A crash! How much of my life is just a cover-up for…for this fucking insanity?"

Above them, there was a mighty boom, and the gantry shook. The Angel was mobile once more.

"You've been offered a chance at immortality," said Haddo. If his godson's persistence was annoying him at all, he was doing a good job at hiding it. "Now is not the time to think of just yourself. This exercise in exposition is over, Michael. If you will not pilot Unit 01 and defeat the Angel, you will leave my building with the knowledge that you forsook the human race."

Michael looked at Abbey. They had only been acquainted a short time, but he hoped she would be his friend, stand on his side, tell them that this was madness. He got none of that. She was devoid of emotion. He was alone.

"Get inside," she told him flatly.

"I CAN'T!" Michael screamed.

"We'll be guiding you along the whole time," said Therese.

"AREN'T YOU LISTENING? I CAN'T! IF I GET IN THAT MONSTER I'LL BE KILLED!" He hung his head and clenched his fists tightly on the catwalk's safety rail. The two women looked at each other, then at him, but said nothing. He knew why. Despite his anger, he understood their expressions must have been grim. They had just seen their last hope fly out the window. All the eyes in that room were on. Haddo, Abbey, Therese, the techies holding their tongues, were all fixed on him. The noiselessness of the moment lasted an eternity under Behemoth's chilled, impartial gaze until it was broken by the hard, slightly distorted voice on the tannoy.

"Then you are useless to me," said Haddo. "Leave."

He elected the spoilt brat was no longer worth his attention, and turned his head to a bank of monitors in the wall of the booth he was standing in. "Fordyce, wake up Rhea."

"Can we use her?" asked a hoarse, disbelieving voice with an Edinburgh timbre.

"She's not dead yet," said Haddo. "Patch me through to her at the infirmary."

A pause. Michael heard a brief, sharp snarl of channels being switched, followed by a faint rhythm of a heart monitor. Haddo was talking to somebody attached to it in a voice so soft and gentle he couldn't make out anything, though he easily guessed what was being said. That he was unusable. Useless. He put his hands over his face and his shoulders slumped. How could they all be so unfair to him? Tear him out of his comfort zone and tell him all this stuff and face him with an impossible choice and act all upset when he made the understandable choice? He was fourteen, for God's sake! He was supposed to be worrying over school and hormones and working out what he wanted to do with his life. Saving the planet? That was for adults to think about. He was only a kid.

Therese let out a disappointed sigh and looked at one of the techie. "Reset Unit 01's systems for Rhea." The techie nodded, then he and his colleagues got straight to work.

Michael was humiliated. His breath came in shudders. He fought off the urge to weep and failed miserably. He felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder, heard Abbey's voice whispering nobody blamed him. Somebody told her she was needed in operations and she excused herself from him. Seconds later, a door slid open at the far end of the catwalk and three paramedics wheeled in a hospital trolley. Michael turned as they passed him, and saw that lying on top of it was a girl so pale he mistook her for a corpse, except no dead person could stare at him so intently as she did. Her bobbed hair was a blood-splattered tangle on top of her ghostly face. One scarlet eye was covered by a pad fixed by a loop of gauze. Her legs and stomach were wrapped in bandages, her right forearm was sealed in a cast, her left was hooked up to an intravenous drip of some clear solution. Rhea was clad in a white seamless space-suit that clung to her like a second layer of skin. Printed on her chest in black were the number, _"__00,__"_ and a surname, _"__CIPHER.__"_ Her good eye was glued on him but her features were otherwise unreadable.

Michael at least wished she could look angry with him, because then she would be looking at him rather than through him as he felt she was. The worst part was that someone as badly banged up as her was willing to put her life in danger instead of him when the first round already ended in catastrophe. The medics brought the trolley to a halt a short way past him and Therese joined them. They carefully removed the I.V. needle. A minikin outpour of blood flowered on the snow of her flesh before they applied a pad and taped it into place. It made Michael twitch. He hated the sight of blood. Rhea flopped into a half-upright sitting position, squeezed her eye shut and took several long, painful breaths broken up by agonised squeaks.

There was another thunderous tremor, closer, throwing Therese and the medics apart and knocking loose a knot of interweaving girders from the ceiling. Michael's heart skipped, the sounds all around him became dull murmurs. His blood pumping hard was the only thing he could hear. His world was cranked into slow-motion as the trolley went over and Rhea was flung helplessly in his direction. His adrenaline centres roared, and before he understood what was happening he was sprinting, arms stretched out as far as they would go. She slammed into him first with a stertorous cry of pain. His arms hugged her tight as they went over, his back taking the brunt of the fall. Reality returned to normal speed as he lied there on the metal catwalk, staring straight up at the ceiling as the girders filled his vision.

He called for help.

There was a screech of metal straining, then Behemoth's right arm tore free of its restraints and interposed itself over the children. The girders bounced off and clanged horribly against the walls. One broke in half off the windows. Haddo never even flinched, he just smiled victoriously. Michael, absorbed as he was in the fragile girl in his arms and the miracle that had saved their lives, found his gaze drawn to the man behind the glass, and knew that bringing Rhea out in front of him, in her critical state, had been nothing but a ploy: _do __as __I __command, __or __she __dies __first._

"You heartless bastard," he cursed tacitly, then froze as a soft hand met his cheek. Rhea was looking at him, breathing shortly through the fog of pain and trying to focus with her one good eye. He felt something hot and sticky in his palms, and brought his right one up for a look. Her wounds reopened, soaking through her bandages and smothering him with a fresh burst of claret. He used the cuff of his jacket's sleeve to wipe away the cold sweat standing on Rhea's forehead.

That settled it. Nothing else for it.

"I'LL DO IT!" he yelled at Haddo. He added, lower, "I'll pilot it," to Rhea, because he wanted to let her know that she could leave the rest to him and focus on getting better. He couldn't tell if she comprehended. She succumbed to exhaustion and fell limp in his arms.

[Hot Chip – _"__Shake __a __Fist__"_ – Made in the Dark, 2008]

It was oddly comfortable once he had settled into the cockpit. It was not actually a part of the robot itself, but a hollowed out tube which was screwed into a socket in the back of the robot's shoulders by a crane before the sliding armour plates locked it snugly in place. He was sat semi-upright in a padded seat that moulded itself to his shape like those Tempur-Pedic mattresses. His legs were slipped through holes in a frame and rested on sensitive pedals. An instrument panel was integrated into the part of the frame raised directly in front of him and was indeed similar to the Grob flight consoles he had seen in training, with some accommodating deviances. His hands wrapped around dual joysticks on gimbals. The walls were covered with innumerable display monitors that currently displayed a slowly fluctuating Mandelbrot sequence. The equipment hummed coolly. They had put a transparent band on his head that hooked under his ears. Two white, triangular bits were stuck on top. Around his neck was a red collar. Wires connected the components to each other and to the seat. All-in-all being inside the tight, temperature little space was actually nice. Michael might have even drifted off to sleep if the voice of Therese Sternsinger didn't rouse him through the entry plug's communicator.

"Michael, can you hear me?" she asked.

"Yes, I hear you," he replied after a moment's consideration. The excitement of earlier had drained most of the rage out of him, and his voice was quiet regardless of how anxious he was about going into his first battle. The last time he had been in a proper fight was in year six, and remained unresolved to this day because the headmistress stuck her oar in before it got too out-of-control.

"We're beginning the synchronisation procedure now," she told him. "Try not to panic." He was going to ask her why he would panic when another, younger female voice said, "Injecting the Link Connection Liquid now."

For a split-second Michael was under the mistaken belief that he had wet himself, then he realised the liquid was flowing in _via_ ports in the walls of the plug. It took only a few moments to immerse him in the stuff, which had the viscosity of water but looked lime green under the glow of the screens. He sorely doubted they would bring him all this way just to drown him in sludge, and he found he could still breathe. Therese explained over the channel, which was unaffected by the fluid, that his blood was being oxygenated for him and after a few seconds the previous colours of the equipment reasserted themselves as if the liquid was not even there, but the light pressure on his skin, the way his curly hair was floating, and the hazy scent of copper all proved otherwise.

"How's it feel in there?" asked the second female voice. "Have you acclimatised yet?"

"I'm gonna be sick," he responded queasily. A cloud of bubbles belched out of his open mouth. Abbey chided him for being soft and he made an indignant face. How would she like to take his place inside of the world's largest water balloon? The screens shifted from the Mandelbrot sequence to muted colour patterns, then cycled through a series of indecipherable images, then it all washed away to reveal the gantry as Behemoth saw it. In a way, Michael felt as if his whole body had been stretched. He perceived himself being much taller, with long legs and strong muscles. His body was tense, restricted, and he was slouching a tad. Somehow, he felt a kind of new awareness vibrating in the space behind his eyes. Sounds were sharper, objects were crystal-clearer than ever, he could even feel the atmosphere outside. He barely remembered he was in the control centre of a huge, demonic contraption, because it felt more like he and the Evangelion had become a gestalt entity. He thought it was brilliant.

The technical team watched with a united sense of satisfaction as all things pointed to an orderly activation. There were no untoward voltage spikes or strayed neural pulses to throw off the delicate agendum. The mind of Michael Silence and whatever attitudinised the mind of Evangelion Unit 01 were intermeshing with almost supernatural compatibility. The suspension liquid was flooded from the gantry and the crew carried out each step with practised meticulousness.

"Umbilical cable connected."

"Main power flowing to all circuits."

"Nerve connections operational."

"Primary command interface set to English."

"His rate of synchronisation's holding at 41.3%," reported one of the technicians, a pretty young woman named Maya.

"On his first time?" Therese sounded genuinely impressed. She leaned in closer as Maya's monitor displayed lines of digital rectangles snapping together and turning from black to blue-green. To her it was a comforting surprise, especially if one considered which EVA he was using.

"All harmonics are normal," piped up the technician to Maya's left. "Contact has been established."

"Ready for lift-off," said Therese.

Abbey nodded her acknowledgement and commanded loudly to begin Unit 01's launch sequence. The wire-mesh grates behind and in front of the machine slid open, and in the entry plug Michael busied himself by counting off the number of steps there were. It seemed like a good thing to file away for future reference, if he had a future that was. He had no idea that riding inside a giant robot could be so boring, then he blushed and bit his lower lip because he must have said that last part out loud if the snickering he heard on the channel was any indication. The Evangelion was rocked lightly as the walls of the gantry were disassembled.

"Disengaging primary locking bolts."

"Moving the umbilical bridge."

"Disengaging secondary locking bolts."

"Deactivating safety locks numbers one through fifteen."

"Internal emergency battery charged."

"External power socket operational."

"Move EVA Unit 01 to the launch-pad," relayed Maya, "use track nine." The section of floor on which the robot stood trundled backwards and upwards on caterpillar treads, coming to a halt beneath a row of multifold hatches positioned above its head.

The hatch directly over whooshed apart, followed by the many filling the tunnel abaft, opening a clear path to the surface almost a mile above headquarters.

"Exit path is clear," said Maya, "all systems green. He's all yours, Captain Creed."

Abbey glimpsed back towards the raised tier at the far end of the control room, where Professor Haddo sat imperially over all, hands knitted, with Fordyce stood to attention on his right. "Are you sure we can really do this, sir? He _is_ just a boy."

"If we do not," Haddo reminded her, "then mankind's finished."

Abbey knew he was right, and forced her anxiety to melt away by falling into the memories of the well-rehearsed procedure. She had gone over and over it in her mind ever since she came to NERV. Now it was for real. "EVA launch!" she ordered.

Magnetic rails blazed to life and catapulted the platform, as well as Behemoth, up towards the danger-zone. The velocity and G-forces pushed Michael down into the foamy seat.

His hands tightened around the joysticks so much his knuckles whitened. He pressed his feet against the pedals hard, hoping to maintain his stability, lest he sink into the floor of the entry plug completely. The nausea he had suffered previously was dispelled, but he still felt like he had left his stomach somewhere around basement level. The last hatch opened in the middle of a wide street and Behemoth arose with an abrupt, teeth-jangling crash that made Michael thankful for the shock absorption provided by the liquid-filled cockpit. The screens gave him a two-hundred-and-seventy degree view of everything his mount was seeing. He dominated Central London, being only outside by a small percentage of the buildings. It was night now, and in the alabaster moonlight, he thought he must have looked mighty impressive. It was an empowering thought.

[Aphex Twin – _"__Phlange __Phace__"_ – Xylem Tube EP, 1992]

The Angel, now his own height rather than inconceivably giant, emerged from behind the Willis Building. It turned to face its new adversary. Its injuries had fully regenerated without even a trace of scarring left by the failed N² imploder manouvre.

"All right, you bastard," Michael whispered, sounding a lot less sure of himself then he would have liked, "let's do it."

"Remove final safety locks," he heard Abbey on the other end of the channel. There was a hiss of gas and a loud clacking as the brackets on Behemoth's shoulders opened, then the bolted frames around its feet depressurised. The robot slouched under its own tonnage, knees bending as the weight was distributed.

"Concentrate on walking," Therese told him. "Don't worry about anything else for now."

Michael gripped the joysticks, took a stabling breath and then pushed down on one of the pedals. He felt a lurch as Behemoth reacted, taking a single cautious step off its platform. The shockwaves generated by its footfall shattered the glass in a street-side telephone box. There were optimistic sounds from headquarters congratulating him. Head swelling a bit, Michael willed his robot forward, but the second foot caught the back of the opposing ankle and he toppled over with a cry, leaving an Evangelion-shaped imprint in the tarmac. Inertia swam all around his skull and by the time Abbey's pleas broke through, the Angel was already upon him. Not even stooping, it wrapped a flat, scaly paw around Behemoth's head, hoisted it to its feet and then into the air. Its other paw sought out and found the robot's left wrist, and Michael gasped as he felt his own limb being yanked to one side. Muscle mass bulged grotesquely under the skin of the Angel's arms, channelling itself along to its wrists as easily as water in a hose, then it began to pull its captive apart. Michael gurgled in agony as his head and wrist were thrust apart in mimicry of the EVA's. The veins in his arm hardened, taking the pain he shared with his mount from mere sympathetic feedback to physical sensation.

Someone, he wasn't certain who right now, told him it wasn't really his arm. "It's a grand fucking substitute!" he whined.

Fantasized blood vessels churned and burst, assaulting senses with silver-sharp explosive signals. There was a crunch, and all at once, every single one of Michael's natural receptors were rendered in twain. His body spasmed and he foamed at the mouth like a rabid animal. His arm floated like an empty sock in the L.C.L. The chemicals his adrenal gland pumped to ease the pain turned his vision into a cloudy haze, one he barely got through as the skin of the palm clasping Behemoth's head wrinkled and opened in the middle, revealing the razor-sharp tip of a keratin spear. The bony spike on the Angel's elbow slid inside, propelling the spear into Behemoth's face with the strength and thrust of a high-powered rifle. He screamed, covering his right eye with his remaining hand. The cacophony made it impossible to hear the voices of Abbey or Therese or any of the supporting technicians. There was just vertigo and pain worse than he'd ever known before in his life. The bone rod arced backwards again, and with a final push it pierced the EVA's right eye and out the back of its head with enough momentum to send it careening away down the street.

Behemoth staggered, then collapsed against a tower and slumped to the street. Its broken arm scraped a crevice down the front of another building as it came down in a mangled heap of blood and metal. Its head fell. A quiet, gut-churning moment passed, then hot gore sprayed from the entry and exit wounds. At NERV, Maya exclaimed that all synchronised control connections were coming undone. Another technician stated with morbid certainty the A10 devices designed to monitor the pilot's life-signs had gone silent.

EVA Unit 01 was motionless. Under its helmet its remaining eye had narrowed to a thin squint. Michael's brain felt buoyant in his head, as if it were bobbing in soupy L.C.L. Every part of him was numb. His heart thumped in his ears like a drum while something played steel guitar on his nervous system. It is the sense of smell that actifies first at birth, and then the last one, supposedly, to fade upon expiration. Right now, Michael could only smell blood. Not his own. His discomfort was only simulated. The sheets of metal cocooning him meant it wasn't Behemoth's blood either, but it was undoubtedly there. A voice appeared inside his mind. Not Abbey's. Not Therese. Not any of her team. This was new, but it felt familiar, like _déjà__vu_ or a fleeting dream. Honeyed, whispering, not quite male and not quite female, more like a choir of both. The words raced up his brainstem and painted themselves in his eyes.

"_Trust __me,__"_ they asked, and Michael responded wordlessly, _"__I __trust __you.__"_ He and Behemoth became as one.

[Joy Division – _"__Disorder__"_ – Unknown Pleasures, 1979]

The Evangelion's working eye, the left one, opened up wide as its energy returned, and it wrenched open its jaws, revealing a tunnel of grizzly, crimson teeth.

"Unit 01 has reactivated!" said Maya in disbelief.

"How can that be?" gawked Therese, pushing her assistant out of the way so she could get a closer look, as if all the wild numbers on the monitor would provide her an answer. There was nobody else who could do so aside from the robot itself, until it struck her and Abbey both. They knew it could happen, that enough stress on the pilot's neural connection had its risks, and that it could not be allowed to happen. Their worst fears were made manifest before them, however, as the EVA became a berserker.

Until it tired, the EVA was out of their hands, and God alone knew what it might do if the state were sustained.

Behemoth snarled at a pitch that was so inhumanly low it made every window in the area rattle. The nearest ones cracked or exploded inwards. This startled the Angel enough to halt its advance. Behemoth glanced at its broken arm and hefted it up. Purple phosphorescence encased the damaged part, dispersing in a shower of sparks to reveal no sign it had ever been damaged. The Evangelion loosed a noise like a triumphant sneer, flexing its digits, then it clenched the hand into a fist save for the index finger, which it pointed challengingly at the Angel. It braced, pushed off with all its strength, somersaulted in mid-air and drove both its feet into the Angel's chest. Its cable trailed and spiralled around them as Behemoth dug its claws in and tried to pull out great chunks of alien meat. The Angel's face gave no indication, but it grappled frantically with the EVA for a moment, then managed to free itself by tossing its suddenly fearsome aggressor away, but Behemoth was having none of that. It landed, crouched in the middle of the street, then turned and charged back, only to slam into the Angel's force-field, which became visible as endlessly outgrowing hexagonal waves of fire and sounded like a dozen cloister bells.

"It's an A.T. Field!" Therese confirmed. So long as that was active, the Angel was untouchable. That was when the men and women of NERV got their final impossible thing for the day. Unit 01 took a step backwards as if to assess the situation, then it stretched its hands out as light particles collected in its palms, pressed those palms to the burning shield, and tore it down the centre like a man forcing open a pair of lift doors, or that's what they would have thought if they were not so simultaneously awed and terrified.

"E-EVA has deployed its own A.T. Field," shuddered Maya, "it's neutralising the phase-space…no! It's ripping it up like it's not even there!"

With a final jerk, Behemoth tore the Angel's shield to pieces, but its opponent was already waiting for it. Its eyes shot out a burst of hot light that reached down the street and spread between the buildings to form a crude cross. The extreme heat of the attack faded and Behemoth, not in the least affected, grabbed the Angel's sinewy wrists and wrenched them across one another. In a move fuelled by a sense of karmic retribution, it shattered the alien's hands, then kicked it hard enough in the chest to break them off utterly. The purple beast ploughed the Angel into the Earth's crust with a savage flurry of knee-strikes, punches and slashing stabs with its horn. The Angel's muscles haemorrhaged, spilling blue gore into the streets and dashing the buildings and landmarks. Amid the violence, Unit 01 was able to rip out one of the rib-like protrusions in its chest and used it like a primitive knife, battering the shiny red core in the middle of the Angel's chest until it cracked.

One chance. That was all the Angel had if it wanted to win.

It disengaged its shape, pouring itself like oil around the EVA's upper body. The red core scraped against Behemoth's face and began to flash urgently. Switching to on-board cameras, it only took Abbey milliseconds to recognise it as a bomb's timer and bark one last desperate command into the communicator. The Angel self-destructed inside a marvellous column of plasma and brimstone, flattening the surrounding blocks and speckling the London skyline with what little remained of its mass.

The smoke cleared, the dust settled, and Behemoth emerged, its armour blackened and charred but overall salvageable. The way it strode forth was slow, deliberate, sending out a message to anyone watching. _"__I __have __won.__"_ When it eventually ground to a halt beside 30 St Mary Axe, it sank to its knees with one hand supporting itself tiredly against the tower, and at NERV, the equipment rediscovered the pilot's life-signs, which had come back quite stable. Michael looked around to find himself once again inside the plug, not totally sure what had unfolded. He heard mixed cheers and chattering on the channel, all of which was overseen by the smug, contented visage of his godfather. The excitement turned to fright as the entire front half of the EVA's singed helmet fell away and crashed to the street. Michael looked to the side, and saw himself. No it wasn't his face in the glass wall of the Gherkin. It was Behemoth's face.

It still wore its artificial lower jaw and the back half of its helm, and was itself a brownish-grey, featureless thing that reminded him of the blue whale skulls he had seen in a museum.

As he angled himself, fixated on it, a slit opened up in the side of the skull. Underneath was a bulbous, emerald eyeball cushioned by pink organic material. Its iris first expanded, then contracted, and three pupils in a triangular formation developed around the larger main one. Michael peered into the eye of the entity who might have just saved his life. It felt like looking into a fractured mirror, because he saw himself in its depths, and he saw the EVA even deeper than that. The signals in his brain told him he was staring at himself both ways. Too tired and confused to even scream, Michael gurgled weakly and passed out.

[Frank Sinatra – _"__Fly __Me __to __the __Moon__"_ – It Might as Well Be Swing, 1964]

**CLOSING STATEMENT:**

In the original version of this story, the Rei Ayanami analogue was named Olivia Blake. Since I called the head of NERV Oliver I wanted to avoid names that were too similar. I still wanted to maintain the, _"__zero,__"_ connection, but I couldn't find a first name equivalent in English, hence the decision to make her surname, _"__Cipher.__"_ I opted to make her first name phonetically similar because while I fully intend to distance my interpretations of the characters from Anno's more-so than I did in the first draft, I will likely play Rhea close to the guidelines. At the start, anyway.

_Rebuild __2.22_ evidences Anno reads at least some fan-fiction, so I'm going to call that an open season ticket on characterisation.

In the meantime!

Michael's first sortie in Unit 01 has been a success, but even worse challenges await him. Recollection.


	3. Finding Home P1

**Chapter 3  
><strong>"**Finding Home, Part One"**

[E.S. Posthumous – _"__Ashielf __Pi__"_ – Cartographer, 2008]

He stood just inside the doors of the train station, peering out with all the trembling fretfulness of a cold Chihuahua. The sights and sounds weren't so much different to Cardiff as he thought they would be, but the coiling, clustering method of the architecture, and the way those sounds all went off at the exact same time were what managed to intimidate him. On all sides of him were skyscrapers and monuments, scratching the sky like needles and walling him in. He knew the history. London wasn't so much a city as one built on top of a city, built on top of a city, built on top of an insane labyrinth, and though he wasn't to know at the time, all of it nestled comfortably atop a subterrestrial void straight out of Conan Doyle's, _"__The __Lost __World.__"_ Someone bumped into him roughly from behind. They apologised, but now he was outside in the daylight, a boy whose sense of direction managed to be worse than his sense of self-preservation, in the easiest city in the world to get lost in. He stood on the top step, scanning the street. The pusher had disappeared into the crowd by now. He wasn't keen to use his mobile 'phone, so he ventured far enough from the doors to use a public box, then realised he had no idea who to call and no change in his wallet, only a few notes, and it wasn't like he could ask someone to change it up for him, was it? He was resigning himself to go back, sit on the steps and wait for his pick-up, when he spotted the girl standing in the middle of the street. He only caught a short glimpse of her, but it lasted long enough for him to see snowy white hair hanging just below shoulder length, and eyes that appeared to glow like hot coals. A loud twittering of a flock of pigeons caused him to move his gaze upwards, and the knocking on the outside of the box, somebody asking if he's finished in there yet, scared him shitless. He stumbled out, saying sorry, and then he tried to find the girl again.

She was gone.

Michael's eyes opened and sat up with a small groan. His body ached all over because he'd been sleeping in a funny position. The room was dark, only the slits between the blinds allowing light to enter. The small, private hospital room's whitewashed walls and blue floor, coupled with its overall sparseness was more than a little bit depressing, but at least provided him enough peace to wait out the throbbing in his bonce.

Once he was confident enough to try moving, and found nothing binding him to the bed, not even an I.V. drip, he slowly rose, using the chest-height bedside cabinet steady himself. There was an on-suite bathroom that he used to wash, and someone had been conscientious enough to leave some folded clothes waiting for him on the wooden chair in the corner. They weren't all to his taste, but they would do. A simple white shirt, grey vest emblazoned with the red NERV brand on the front and a pair of black smart trousers. The logo cleared some of the haze in his skull for him and let him remember fragments of last night. He recalled a lot of pain and fear transmogrifying into rage. No, a better word was hate. Destroying whatever had scared him was not only elevating, but also necessary. Whatever it was _had_ to die, but he had never felt that level of animosity towards any living creature before. He didn't like spiders, snails, worms, rats and a lot of other things, but he was always inclined to just avoid them rather than actively erase them. The wilful destruction of another creature was uncharacteristic of him.

"Was any of it real?" he asked nobody in particular, then he slapped himself on the forehead. "Of course it was, you twat! It made you go nuts! That's why you're mumbling to yourself!"

[War – _"__Low __Rider__"_ – Why Can't We Be Friends?, 1975]

Part of the grogginess was probably because he was hungry and thirsty. Maybe he could find a nurse, find out when brekky was served. First he wanted to confirm something, like why in the world he was in a hospital room in the first place. He walked across to the blinds and pushed open the gap between two just enough for him to see through, and nodded acknowledgement. He was still at NERV headquarters, on the floor of the Geo-Front, with the other London dangling from the ceiling like a novelty chandelier and transport tubes criss-crossing in the distance. He could see the pyramid and the statue of Thoth-Hermes stood over Pyramid Pond, which led him to assume he was inside their neighbour the ziggurat. Proof of the place's existence was a sure-fire way to throw Hollow Earth theorists into a tizzy.

He stretched his arms, welcoming the world, then he let out a yawn, scratched his curly-haired head, pulled on the hospital slippers lying beside the bed, and excused himself. He found the quietness in the halls unsettling. The nurse's station was unmanned, and he occasionally heard quick movements behind him that prompted him to look around frantically. He was starting to believe somebody was taking the mick when he came across a particular door. Slotted in a bracket on the front was a white card bearing a name he recognised: _CIPHER, __R._ The memories of the previous night flashed through his eye like an a video on fast-forward. It was still blurred for the largest part of his battle with what he later learned was designated, _"__The __Fourth __Angel,__"_ but the moments leading up to his blackout inside the entry plug were clear as day, especially his godfather's evil, sick gambit that convinced him to climb onboard the monster in the first place. The image of Rhea Cipher's broken, bleeding body drove him to do something else he normally would not. He envisioned turning all of Behemoth's demonic strength on him. Compared to the EVA, Oliver Haddo was as fragile as a flower.

The door opened before he could touch the handle, and Michael leapt backwards in a defensive stance with a loud yelp. Rhea stood staring at him intently with her good eye. Her bandages had been replaced, and she wore a simplistic outfit. No brands or designs in sight. He would go so far as proper if it wasn't so plain, being a subdued fusion of white, black and powdered blue as it was. She said nothing, but she was looking at him expectantly as he eased his heart rate down with deep breaths.

"R…Rhea, right?" he asked. There were better ways to start a conversation with one's colleagues, but there were also lots worse. She nodded her head, but the movement was so slight as to be almost unnoticeable. When she finally did condescend to speak, Michael was sure a ladybird sneezing would be louder.

"Come again?" he asked.

"I said yes," she replied only a smidge louder, "and you were the one who piloted the EVA last night. The commander summoned you here."

"_Um__…_yes, that's me," he held out a hand for her in a gesture of goodwill, but slowly lowered it when she didn't take. "My name's Michael. Are you feeling better today?"

"Does it matter?" she asked.

"Yeah it matters!" he exclaimed, affronted. "I went out there because I didn't want you to end up looking any more like the Invisible Man than you do already!" He slapped his hand over his mouth. She said nothing. "You know," he said through his digits, "I'd be really grateful if you were pissed off at me."

"Why?"

"It'd feel less…weird."

"I'm weird?"

Michael decided it was best not to pursue that line of talk any further. _Wonderful __job, __genius,_ he scolded himself, _fine __working __environment __you__'__re __building __up __here._ "Don't mean it that way," he told her. "I just came to make sure were okay, and see if we could be friends, since we're working together." She didn't say anything, but he guessed what was on her mind. She probably wanted to know if he really was going to pilot EVA again, and he couldn't think of a reason not to.

"If you're up to it," he said to break the pause, "we could go get breakfast together in the city. There anything you like?"

She said nothing, just seemed to stare at him in a manner that was really starting to unnerve him. Maybe he was wrong and she had nothing on her mind. Nothing at all. He doubted she would even notice if he dropped the conversation and sauntered off, but he would feel like he was being rude to do that.

"Let's get muffins," he said, "and smoothies."

"For breakfast?" she seemed genuinely puzzled by that and her eye blinked a couple of times.

"Yeah!" he beamed, spreading his arms for emphasis. "That's what trendy, modern people like us eat. Food that's bad for your body but good for your soul." She repeated his last few words under her breath as if they were foreign but made no indication of whether or not she accepted his invitation. He moved behind her in the doorway and steered her into the hall, not that he had the faintest clue where to go.

XXX

Abbey Creed gazed through half-hooded eyes at what was going on behind the metal gates they had erected around the danger-zone. The central area had yet to be re-engaged, so civilians were still tucked away neatly inside the Geo-Front shelters. A government blackout signal had been transmitted to block the details of the battle from the general public, but it was all an exercise in futility. They had been so ill-prepared for the Fourth Angel's arrival that most people had at least caught a glimpse of it before the proper procedures were even complete, and that probably went for Unit 00's sortie and the botched up imploder as well. It was not like they could cover up the fact the Thames now had a nice round crater smack-dab in the middle with a contrived story about a weather balloon or swamp gasses reflected off Venus. The nearby districts had been either cut in half or wiped off the map completely. Millennium Pier was gone, as was a chunk of the Square Mile. Much as the higher-ups liked to assure themselves otherwise, ordinary individuals were not stupid. It would not be long before stories of giant monsters and secret government weapons were plastered all over the tabloids and early morning chat programmes.

"At least," Therese assured her, "it'll give public relations something to do finally. And the important buildings are still standing, figuratively speaking." She pointed downwards so as to emphasise her point.

"You're right," Abbey conceded, leaning back on her seat in the cab of the featureless NERV lorry. She took a sip from her cardboard coffee cup. The two women were present on inspection duty, to confirm the clean-up operation was thorough. Behemoth was on its knees, one big palm flat against the ground and the other against the side of 30 St Mary Axe. Its head hung below the level of its shoulders and was wrapped in sheets of cloth and metal. Its horned helmet was being hefted away by a crane. The robot's purple-and-green armour was pebble-dashed with the blue from the Angel's blood, and fragments of the monster were scattered over the city from end to end. Despite the cleaners' best efforts, it would take them a while to collect all traces of the thing for disposal. That meant warning the public about the risk of contamination, cordoning off sites where the mess was at its worst, and ordering a big old shipment of headache pills. The robot was dormant now, but it would be a long time before she wiped the hideous image of the night before out of her mind. How could a machine look so terrifying? Black, foul, lurching its way out of the flames. Where had those teeth, or that low roar even come from? Her train of thought was broken by the sound of the chief scientist's voice on her left.

"What? Sorry, I zonked out."

"I asked how you think the House will take Unit 01's maiden flight," said her friend, taking her fingers off her laptop's keyboard and her report for Professor Haddo. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Abbey sighed, "as far as the House goes, they'll probably take it the same way they do everything. Shout, flail their arms, gnash their teeth for a few hours, until somebody will say something half-sensible and they'll all agree because nobody else can think of something to say. Situation normal."

"Why, Captain Creed!" Therese mock-gasped, "I've never heard you say anything so cynical in all the time I've known you!"

Abbey groaned, "I'm worried about the kid. I mean, I know they said he wasn't hurt once they got him out of the EVA, right? But still…"

"I understand," Therese nodded and reached across to pat her best friend's arm. "He had a rough night. His cerebellum took a lot of strain."

"Cerebellum?" Abbey snorted derisively. "After the way we used Rhea to press-gang him like that, it's his heart I'm concerned about. God, I feel like a such rat." There was a brief pause. "By the way, how's Rhea recovering? She didn't exactly get out without her fair share of bruises thanks to that idiot on the war council."

"Her injuries are no worse than the ones she sustained during Unit 00's original activation test," said the blonde, tensing at the memory. "It'll be a month before she's fit to pilot but the repair work on the EVA should be completed before that. Frankly, I'm stunned we could get the thing to move. It'd be the first time it's done anything without us having to fight for it."

Another pause. Abbey had no response to that. The activation test had taken place before her transfer to NERV, but she had viewed all the operation video-logs. None of them were pretty. Behemoth's horned helmet passed over them on its crane-sling. They spent the next minute-and-a-half without a word.

"I don't think there's much else we can do here," said Therese to fill the stifling dead air. "I'm going to be needed at base so I can oversee the work on the units. Why don't you go check on the hero of the hour?"

"Glad you suggested it before I asked," Abbey smirked, wagging a pen in her companion's face, "means me bunking off isn't on my conscience." Therese snatched the empty cup and playfully bonked the raven-haired division leader on the head.

XXX

"You're up. Good."

Rhea said nothing as the figure of Commander Haddo stepped out of the lift and into the hospital hallway. He wasn't smiling, but then he rarely smiled, but she could see the warmth behind his glasses. It was a look he reserved only for her. He didn't notice Pilot Silence at all, and for a second she forgot he was even present, until she heard his angry voice next to her saying, "No thanks to you, you psycho!"

Haddo looked down at the young man. "Excuse me?" he said, not really asking. It was stern, more like a challenge to the boy.

"I know you're tall but you heard me fine!" Silence snapped, his awkward meekness overcome by anger. "I should punch your lights out for what you did to us you twisted bastard!"

"If hitting me would make you feel better, you can have one for free," said Haddo, patting himself on the chest with one gloved hand.

"I don't want your charity," Michael snarled, "just get out of our way." He tried to push past the director of NERV, but only managed to elicit a mumbled curse word from his own throat as he realised the man was built like a brick wall. "Coming?" he asked Rhea. The pale girl said nothing, but she looked at the man as if he were her master.

"I came across to see you, Rhea," said Haddo, "but if you want to go with him, we can catch up in my office later. Go on, off you pop."

[The Cribs – _"__Stick __to __Yr __Guns__"_ – Ignore the Ignorant, 2009]

"'_Off __you __pop__'_," Michael repeated scornfully after the lift doors closed on him and Rhea and they were on their way to the ground floor. "Patronising bastard."

"Why do you show such hostility for him?" Rhea asked quietly.

"That man's an obvious fruit loop!" Michael retorted, his tone still affected by his annoyance. "He…he only ever called on my family when he needed us. Between the day my dad died, when I started living with my grandparents, and when I got the letter calling me to London, I never heard from him. Then I find out the entire last year of my life was plotted out behind my back so he could eventually get me inside that…that sick thing!"

Rhea looked at him, and his anger suddenly boiled off and gave way to his previous nervy demeanour. "Aren't you…aren't you at all scared by this?" he asked.

"I believe in the commander's work," Rhea told him, "I believe in him. Don't you?"

"N-no I don't!" shot Michael. "He never gave me any reason to before, and I'm not going to start now!" He wasn't sure quite how to process what happened next. The only way that made any sense was that for a scant split-second, Rhea's cold mask fell and the flat of her unbroken hand met his cheek with force and speed rivalling the Fourth Angel's bone spear. Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but it came so fast and unexpectedly it caused him to stagger away all the same. His back bounced loudly off the metal wall, he raised one hand over his cheek and the other arm to protect himself. He stared at the small, half-dead girl in fright. How pathetic he must've looked did not escape him.

The lift opened on the ground floor of the hospital. Rhea was gone from there without another word, leaving a stunned young man to make his way to the front doors alone. He strode past an empty reception desk, briefly pondering where the hell all the staff were, and emerged onto a perfectly flat square of paving. The gold-bathed hills of the Geo-Front rose and fell on all sides, and the smells and sounds of the self-contained eco-system that occupied it surrounded his senses lushly. He saw Rhea already well on her way up the gravel path adjacent to one of the vehicle exit-roads. Good Christ she could shift for a girl who had been confined to a hospital bed yesterday. Maybe she'd been acting, being in cahoots with his godfather? He didn't want to believe that, and would have instead asked himself why he used the word, _"__cahoots,__"_ when he decided to try salvaging his present predicament.

"So…so I take it the breakfast thing's off?" he called after her stupidly. "Maybe next time?"

It didn't work.

"Smooth, Sir Michael."

Michael jumped and spun on his heels to face the owner of the voice, and saw Abbey approaching him. Her hands were tucked in the pockets of her uniform, and she was smiling in what seemed to be relief. Her eyes were not the ones he felt on his back, though. She asked him how he was. He murmured a half-hearted, "All right." She told him she was glad and offered to take him up on the breakfast invitation and a chance to get to know one another better. He didn't bother to put up a fight, even if he was half her age, because it meant there was one more person in this bigger, scarier world to be a lynchpin, somebody that would provide him the stick to measure the planet he now found himself living on. They made their way to where Abbey's busted but still somehow functional car awaited them when he felt the eyes on him again. He looked over at shoulder at a window that was halfway up the hospital building, where a shadowy man was standing and watching.

He couldn't make it out from so far away, but he knew in his heart that Haddo was smirking at him, the way a child with a magnifying glass does when confronted with ants. As they left, the man chose his next destination. He had not just come up to see Rhea after all. He never did anything out of the kindness of his heart, because he believed that part of him died along with three billion other victims of the Awakening. If he were to reach back into his memories, he might even conclude it had passed on long before then, when he realised that the light in his life did not come from his heart, but was embodied solely by his wife. Sweet, unfortunate Leah Haddo (née Harcourt), the one woman apart from his departed mother and one-time mistress who could address him as, _"__Oliver,__"_ without the acidity he had grown accustomed to.

_Oh! The poetry she inspired._

Haddo took the lift to basement level six, where he boarded a robotic carriage to the ART-EV laboratory, to which only a few privileged members of the agency's higher echelons were privy. He passed an optical scan, followed by punching a code into an isomorphic keypad, before he was permitted entry. A dark room, illuminated only by a single Solomonic column of orange, gave itself up before him. He reached up and turned a hidden notch on the arm of his glasses, tuning the lenses so as to perceive the living artefact suspended within. Situated at the base of this sterile tube was a cluster of crystalline fragments that thrummed and radiated in a specific rhythm, reacting to energy processed in the tiny stones growing in delicate patterns out of her skin. He could spend hours staring into the eyes of his and Leah's beautiful abomination, the Mother of Monsters who dwelled in the seed of EVA, and the only sounds would be their quiet breaths. The floor consisted of seven rings within each other, smaller and higher than the last, with an escalator as the only safe way to traverse them, and the ceiling a mess of pipes and wires not unlike a brain from the correct angle.

"Are you hungry?" he asked the creature imprisoned inside the tube. "I hope so." He went to the feeding port and emptied a bucket of human sludge into it. The Mother of Monsters made a disgusted sound, but had long since given up resisting. Haddo mused that the late Chief of General Staff would feel relieved to make up for his idiocy by serving a much greater purpose. "The Gathering has begun," he told the creature, "it's time to let phase one of the interaction experiment run its course."

XXX

They were back on the surface soon enough, but the trip went by with less said than either of them were hoping for. Abbey was clearly exercising caution because she was overestimating how badly Michael's state of mind had been affected, while he was simply deflated. Enough of his anger had been spent that he no longer exerted aggression, but his hand was clenching itself in and out in rhythm. His mind was trying to focus on other things, other ways for him to forget the embarrassment of earlier, but everything seemed to lead either back to it, or to the fact he missed his home, or the irritation because he had been manipulated. In the end, he settled on having a good, long sulk. He could do that and still let his mind go blank, freeing up his attention to take in the city drifting on past the window.

"Abbey?" he eventually asked, and she started a little because of how quiet he had been, "I've just realised something."

"What's that?"

"I've got nowhere to go. I didn't book in anywhere, and I put my bag and all my things down before I even got in the EVA."

"You left your gear here in the car. It's in the boot," said Abbey, taking one hand off the steering wheel to point a thumb over her shoulder. "Don't worry. I was careful in case you had anything important in it. Was that all you brought?"

"I travel light," he said sheepishly, "or…I guess I do, since I don't really travel."

"I'm glad you want to stay here at all," she said, "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. Actually, I heard the boys in Section Two – our intelligence division – had made plans to assign you a flat today, but I took the liberty of sticking my nose in on the way to meet you."

"Where will I be?" he asked.

"Tell you later," she beamed, "but first, there's something I wanna show you. It's dead brilliant."

They drove up to the crest of Muswell Hill and clambered out. It was getting late in the morning. The sun was well into its ascendancy. Below them they could see the city, which Michael thought was unexpectedly flatter and greyer than he imagined, especially considering the impression he got upon his arrival and the mad rush across London Bridge. The ground was made of square slates that slotted together neatly along either side of the river like an enormous Rubik's Cube.

"What am I meant to be looking at?" Michael sniffed.

"Give it a sec," Abbey huffed, and checked her watch. "Make it five…four…three…two…" She was cut off by an alarm. Not urgent, but drawn out like an air raid siren. There was no doubt that everyone within the capital would hear it. The ground beneath their feet rumbled, and the gravel on people's paths began to bounce. Windows rattled gently. Michael was about to cling to his companion, fearing the arrival of the Fifth Angel, when he was greeted by something that not only justified, _"__brilliant,__"_ but in his view redefined it, because with the fluid elegance of a plant blooming, Central London began to grow. Towers and skyscrapers stretched up to paw the clouds, flyovers, raised motorways and skyways swung out of hidden shelves or unfurled between the walls, interconnecting with mechanical precision, while residential blocks sprouted like poppies.

"_Oh_, my God!" he gawked, stupefied, as the buildings he last saw dangling from the ceiling of the Geo-Front filled up the metropolis. "That _is_ brilliant!" Just like that, his negative feelings were swept away.

"This city is a fortress designed to protect its citizens from the Angels," Abbey explained with a sense of pride. "Our city. The city you saved." Michael looked at her, feeling those last words reverberate in his mind, and he started to share in her satisfaction. His wrist brushed unconsciously against hers and she reacted with surprise. They chuckled at each other before returning their eyes to the spectacle. There were at least a hundred different things Michael wanted to say. He settled on one.

"It's beautiful."

They had been standing there for a little under twelve minutes when they got back in the car and Abbey revealed what she had arranged for Michael. She couldn't stand to think of him being made to live alone in a city he didn't understand, and when he argued the point it was a paltry attempt at best, because now he was enjoying her presence, and it was much more preferable to stay with somebody he liked rather than on his Jacks or in some surveillance-spot with C.C.T.V. cameras in all the rooms, which he presumed was how NERV operated (his experiences did not paint a flattering image of the agency or its master). She hadn't told Doctor Sternsinger yet. According to Abbey she was trying to stave off the shit-storm concerning irresponsibility and overstepping her mark. She loved her friend fondly, really she did, but Therry always got a massive stick up her bum when it came to procedure and Abbey was in too good a mood to pull on it. Michael couldn't help but blush and laugh at the mental image the woman's choice of language was giving him. Evidently his grandfather's stories about learning colourful vocabulary in the Armed Forces were true, not that he asked his companion which branch she earned her rank in. Her scarlet uniform gave no indication, and it felt inappropriate to ask when they were in such good spirits, so he was content to keep his questions to himself for the time being.

They made another brief stop, this time at _Tesco_ to re-supply, where Michael overheard a pair of gossip queens talking about recent events. One was convinced that sending as many soldiers into the Middle East as had been done, including her two sons, meant there was no longer enough to protect the country, while the other mentioned her nephew recording events on his camera, and proceeded to rip a new one into, "The idiot that turned a whole city sector into a demolition site." Michael winced and Abbey hurried him out before the criticisms became even more scathing.

"Don't pay attention to them," she huffed, "they haven't got a clue what they're on about."

"They do have a point," Michael replied dourly, "I did do more damage to the buildings than to the Angel."

"No civilians were killed," said Abbey, "and you destroyed the Angel. That's what matters. Come on, what happened to all that positivity a few minutes ago? You and me'll have a party when we get home."

Her flat was on the second floor of the Sirrush estate, which was three-sided and four storeys high. There was a courtyard, and in the middle of that a raised circle of grass surrounded by a foot-high rock wall for decoration. Inside the circle was a palm tree, along with a garishly coloured plastic slide and a swing set. Something told Michael that there had never been families with children living there and the toys were designed to ward off suspicion.

"I'm afraid it might be a little bit messy," Abbey warned him as they reached flat 2I, "I only moved back to London from my station a few days ago. Loadsa boxes left to unpack. You won't mind helping me with that, right? Big, strong lad like you?"

"_Uh_, no, of course I wouldn't mind," Michael replied politely, wondering if it was a coincidence that she held off the labour until she had a roommate to split it with. Absolutely nothing on God's green Earth could prepare him for Abbey Creed's idea of, _"__a __little __bit __messy.__"_ To call it the gross understatement of the decade would be a kindness. To every side of him there were cardboard boxes in stacks twice as tall as he was, held shut by strips of packing tape wrapped at such random angles she must have done them herself in the dark. Dirty cutlery and plates cluttered up the sink, while a small pile of clean ones littered the sideboard. Empty beer tins (_Stella __Artois_ was her poison of choice), crisp packets and chocolate wrappers spread across the table outside the kitchenette. The rubbish bin in the corner was full past its limit. The atmosphere was choked on air freshener to cover the smells and the light bulbs hung naked from the ceiling all the way to their wires. If his nan or granddad had caught his room in such a horrendous state, he would have been expected to not only clear it up, but _like_ it, but Michael's room had never, ever been this bad in his life!

There were also two fridges. One was white, normal, unassuming and quite grubby while the other was one of those big American deals, coloured jet black with chrome trim. When he asked what the second was for, Abbey replied from the next room where she was changing, "_Oh!_ I think he's still sleeping!"

"He's…sleeping…?" Michael thought aloud. When he attempted to investigate he found the fridge locked and decided not to pry any further for now. Frankly, it was none of his business.

[Bryan Ferry – _"__Let__'__s __Stick __Together__ '__88__"_ – single, 1988]

He struggled his way to a sofa in the living room, noting that it, the flat-screen television and the gaming system, were all already out on priority. Next, he dumped his schoolbag on the sofa, popped his slip-on shoes in the gap behind and got busy making the room just a stitch less of a death trap. Abbey came back into the room with her hair tied up and her official garb swapped for a simple pale yellow vest and denim shorts. Around her neck was a silver cross, which surprised Michael, who had not taken her for religious and, rather unusually, there were metal tops from beer bottles hung on the chain too. Her right bicep was tattooed with a rose surrounded by barbed wire and a strip where the flesh was pinker underneath. With just a quick change in apparel she seemed to have receded from a woman in her late twenties to a girl of approximately eighteen.

"I didn't mean you had to start _now_," she said with a roll of her eyes, apparently not noticing his own roaming up and down her body until she crossed her arms in a way that pushed her chest up. He cleared his throat and returned his gaze to the task at hand.

"No offence, but I can't live somewhere that's so…cluttered," he replied as he moved some smaller boxes away from the door and into a pile in front of a window, which he then opened to air out the flat. She shrugged and helped him. The work took them a few hours, and though there was little to no unpacking actually done, but the place gradually became more liveable.

"Feel free to take advantage of whatever you want," she told him over a lunch of egg and chips after they were done, then added a playful, "except me."

"I see how you work," he replied rather bravely, "you get my little hopes up with cake, then tell me I'm not allowed the cherry on top." He narrowly avoided the plastic coaster flung at his head.

"Go take a bath," she mock-grumped, "you smell like hospital soap." This last part was half-yelled at his back, because he conceded he did carry the odour of disinfectant skin-wash and had gone off in search of the bathroom. It was tucked behind two more cardboard monoliths that littered the place's layout, the bottom sections were marked, _"__FRAGILE,__"_ so he used every ounce of discretion to inch them aside without causing harm to whatever she was keeping inside. Where she intended to put all the gear was well beyond him. It was five minutes between that moment and the present. Abbey sat cross-legged on a wood chair at the table with a perplexed expression on her features. The first signs something was amiss were two loud shrieks.

"_AAAUGH!"_

"_WAAUGH!"_

The second was Michael, panicked and bollock-naked, charging out of the bathroom and diving for cover behind the sofa. From the wooden table beside the kitchenette all she could see were his head, shoulders and hands peeking out like a Chad etching. He was trembling all over.

"What's your problem?" she asked bemusedly.

"A ping…pingu…pengy…!" he stammered. The flat's third occupant waddled his way past her and it all made sense. Abbey laughed. The penguin, Pen-Pen was his name as he would like you all to know, was one of the last examples of a once flourishing race of highly intelligent penguins who had been forced to go on a migration from their Antarctic home in the wake of the Second Impact, which had made their waters uninhabitable. Numbers of them had not survived the trip. In fact many of the survivors owed their continued existence to being labelled a fashionable pet by rich humans. They were seldom seen pre-event, and their official classification was, _"__hot __spring __penguin,__"_ based on an observation made by a Japanese zoologist who had seen a flock of wild ones settling in the _onsen_ of Nagano. Abbey jokingly recognised Pen-Pen as her landlord because she discovered him inhabiting the property when she moved in. Initially the beast proved unhappy to share his place with a stranger, especially one from a different species, but a couple of tins of _Stella_ made him change his tune, and now they got along like a house on fire, or so she summed it up, anyway.

"He'll warm up to you," she assured Michael. Pen-Pen stopped beside the table and extended a claw from his wingtip to drag a dog tag on a chain out from under the rim of a plate. After fixing it around its neck, the animal gave the humans a curt nod of acknowledgement, then went over to the big fridge and pressed a switch on the door, which opened with a, _"__whoosh.__"_ The penguin disappeared inside. Michael's expression shifted from terrified to perfectly dull.

"You live with a penguin," he said.

"Yep," Abbey replied.

"_I__'__m_ living with a penguin," he said.

"Yep," Abbey replied.

"And the penguin lives in the other fridge," he said.

"He's got a _Sky __Plus_ box and everything," Abbey replied.

A pause.

"I ran right in front of you without any clothes on," he said.

"Yep," Abbey replied. Michael, to his credit maintaining his stiff upper lip, obscured his modesty with a discarded towel and excused himself. Abbey picked this time to 'phone Therese.

The bathroom was the only room thus far that did not resemble a car-boot sale. The walls and the installations were subdued pink, the ceiling and floor a steamy white. There were fluffy cream towels on a silver rack and a tropical blue-green shower curtain that, prior to his encounter with Abbey's pet turkey, was drawn. The only bubble-stuff they had was a bottle of red liquid that was supposed to relieve muscle tension. It would suffice. Michael submerged himself up to his chin and let the warmth blanket him. He closed his eyes and rested the back of his head on the rim of the bath. It reminded him a bit of the L.C.L. in the entry plug.

He opted to use this newfound privacy to properly process the hectic experiences of the last couple of days. He lifted his left arm, the one he felt certain was being snapped in twain by the Fourth Angel and watched the foam trickle down his skin and back into the water, however, the truth about his mum and dad's deaths was the harshest blow. They had died because of Behemoth, but in his mind, some morbidly curious part of him wanted to know how exactly the caper went down, to uncover the sequence of events that made him an orphan, and then brought him to become the monster's master. Amid his wanderings, one crucial, monumentally importunate thought, distilled its way to the forefront of his mind.

_I hope she didn't see the birthmark on my lad._


	4. Finding Home P2

**Chapter 4  
><strong>"**Finding Home, Part Two"**

Michael asked himself for the seventh time that day why he had agreed to pilot again. His answer was that seeing an Angel for himself had been a kick in the rear end he sorely needed, and while he did like the sound of heroism and doing service unto his fellow men, it didn't feel like it covered everything. He had grown up fairly sheltered, having little ego to make those important decisions through his life, no clue as to who, what or where he wanted to be when he grew up. It felt sort of nice to be at the centre of attention even if today wasn't the real thing. It was his first time in the simulation cage. His EVA's cognitive centres were fed by wires linking its head and arms to the observation deck, from where Doctor Sternsinger's team could directly control what he was seeing; in this case it was a digital mock-up of a city sector in its fortress formation. It had featureless metal towers containing spare weaponry and ammunition, and panels cut out of the roads that would launch temporary shields once depressed. Every few seconds a replica of the Fourth Angel popped out of a hiding place and he would go at it with his current weapon, a scaled-up _SA80_ rifle. His marksmanship was in need of work, panicking each time one of the enemies appeared so he ended up firing before his visor's crosshairs could lock onto the target. In a real fight, he'd have annihilated Havering five times over already.

"Michael, for the last time!" Abbey's voice shouted over his channel. "Stop being in such a rush! If you can't hit it with one bullet you're doing it wrong!"

"I'm trying!" he protested.

"You're acting too much on your own impulses," added a softer voice with a Mancunian accent, Therese's protégé Maya Wadia. "Remember Unit 01 isn't just a machine. Her senses are yours. Let yourself synchronise and you'll get a better result."

"Sounds good, Yoda," huffed Michael, "but it's not like I just flick a switch, is it?"

"No, but that's what the A10 band and plug suit are for," Maya countered, "sit back, relax, let your mind reach out. Trust me on this."

Michael wanted to say that sounded like so much New Age bunkum but kept his mouth shut. He loosened his grip on the joysticks a bit and leaned back in his seat. He felt more than heard the hum of electrical signals passing between the wires connecting the plastic cat's-ears mounted on top of his head to receptor circuits in his control chair. Today was also his first day in a plug suit, specially designed just for him. It clung to his body like a second layer of epidermis and was coloured orange, with black sleeves and marks down the sides and segmenting the abdomen so it marginally resembled the EVA's. The area around his chest and shoulders was bulkier, with a dark red orb like the Angel's core embedded in the centre, and his Unit's number printed in black above. On his back was an inverted triangular apparatus with his surname on it like a footballer's top. His gloves were orange and his collar was green. Wires led from a set of vents over his pectorals, smooth gauntlets with bright, solid green lights and the back of his collar into the chair, holding the pilot fast in a colourful web. He didn't reaffirm his grip on the sticks, but found himself moving them all the same, as a kind of strange heat flared from some place behind his eyes, and then as if his chair were tilting, he was thrown forward into Behemoth's eyes.

The first Angel fell with a single shot. The EVA turned around and missed the second Angel with its opening, ducked behind a tower to avoid its response blast, hopped back up and peppered it with gusto. The third was barely out of its dock before its core was strafed into oblivion. The fourth managed a glancing blow against the EVA's right shoulder pylon and, if it were at all sentient, would immediately regret it. The fifth earned a bullet through its left eye socket and the sixth bled through so many holes it should have simply collapsed were it not just an illusion.

"Mind telling me what the hell happed to the pilot?" Abbey's jaw dropped at the sudden climb.

"His synch score jumped up past 50%," replied Maya, "only for a few seconds, mind you. It's at 42.4% now. Still higher than when we started."

"Log it, Maya," said Therese, "I want the video from the EVA's black box as well for analysis. I don't think we'll get that result again today, not without it being a strain on him." She pressed the button on the microphone beside her so her voice carried directly to the cockpit. "Thank you, Michael. You can disembark now."

"How'd I do?" the boy asked eagerly as his senses transferred back to his own body in the plug.

"You still need improvement," said Abbey, "but well done at the end. It's a start."

"We'll reconvene tomorrow," she added to the technicians, "so I want the intensity stepped up 0.9%. Try variable targets as well as the ones based on the Fourth Angel." Maya promised to see what she could come up with, and shut off the simulator's battle software. A secure plate on Behemoth's upper back flew open and the plug corkscrewed out. Yellow-green L.C.L. drained through chutes at either end and collected in gutters lining the floor.

[Kraftwerk – _"__Europe __Endless__"_ – Trans-Europe Express, 1977]

Michael freed himself, then pulled a lever above him to open the hatch. He emerged safely onto a metal footbridge, went to the changing room, sent the plug suit for cleaning, showered, put on new clothes that were his own and therefore preferable to a NERV-issue school uniform he spent his second day in the city wearing and went towards the car park to wait for Abbey. His sense of direction in big, outside spaces left a lot to be desired, but when it came to memorising indoor routes it was a different story. It had not taken him long to commit to memory the areas of headquarters where he was permitted, and even if he got lost, he always had the map from his manual folded and tucked snugly in his wallet.

His path took him to one of many intersections where two halls crossed paths. There were three leather chairs bolted together against the wall, and a couple of vending machines. He fished some coins from the pocket of his drainpipes, bought himself a chocolate bar and sat down on one of the chairs. He was about halfway between unwrapping and taking his first bite, when his eye caught something that made him freeze. Opposite him was a wide window that peered out over what he assumed was a repair bay or a manufacturing plant. The huge mechanical arms hanging from the ceiling were definitely working at something, but he couldn't tell what it was. That wasn't what held his interest, however. He could see all the way across to the window's twin. He did have to stand up and move closer for a better look, but there was certainly no mistaking Professor Haddo having a talk with Rhea Cipher. Not just a talk, but an actual _conversation_, and they were smiling! Michael had seen little of the old man, but enough to make the warm expression on his features appear left of centre, and for the pale-skinned girl to smile at all was positively alien. Maybe that was it. Her disposition would be so much easier for him to understand if she were an alien. Her dressings had been removed, but from this profile view he could only perceive the side of her he was already acquainted with. That could have been why she was smiling. He knew from experience that it was hard to feel cheerful in uncomfortable, itchy bandages.

He watched them for a bit, and decided that it wasn't too late to make up for insulting her in the lift. Actually he insulted his mad godfather but she had taken it personally and that was what mattered. The challenge would be catching her without him lurking about, but then again, he did start school tomorrow.

Michael's lips turned up at the corners as the pieces fell in place. He clenched his hand and squashed his chocolate, which oozed sticky caramel everywhere.

"_Ugh…!"_

XXX

He never missed a day of school in his whole life. He had now missed almost three consecutive weeks. Abbey had found herself lumbered with sorting out his enrolment. It really should have been simple, since for the sake of convenience he was supposed to attend the same one as Rhea, but it wasn't a place exactly out of demand, and despite a generous financial contribution from NERV, space was still space. The headmaster preferred to maintain a nice, equal amount of thirty pupils for each class. Adding a thirty-first was an affront to his sensibilities, as he was of the old public schoolboys reared on national service and jolly good old-fashioned discipline. He was damn near his late eighties but carried himself with the magnificence of an instructor half his age, with a deep booming voice thundering on about pride and _esprit __de __corps._ Abbey knew from the moment she met him she wouldn't like him. He reminded her too much of her pre-agency commanding officer. Eventually, they reached an agreement ensuring the pilots shared a timetable but there had been a great deal of yelling and a notable crowd were gathered outside the office door when she left. Primarily pupils, but a few of the faculty were thrown in as well. She guessed nobody in their time had the guts to shout at their overbearing thug of a boss.

Therese telephoned her in the evening, supposedly to check on their progress, but Abbey knew it was just an excuse to taunt her. The chief scientist didn't so much imply as outright ask if looking after a child was just one responsibility too much for her. Abbey retaliated by telling her frankly to fornicate sideways using a sharp implement. She hung up just as Therese burst into a fit of laughter on the other end of the line. _It __better __be __worth __all __the __trouble,_ she thought, _if __his __marks __are __bad __I__'__ll __kill __him._

Presently she was in the school's visitor car park, sitting in the driver's seat of her decrepit Z-car and checking her face in a pocket mirror. Michael was already disembarked and taking his first anxious steps towards the school. It comprised three red-brick buildings; two were long, low and flat, arcing like rudimentary arms. The middle was perfectly square with a clock tower spire on top that looked absurdly anachronistic in their modern world, so it suited the headmaster perfectly. The guide included in the prospectus identified the two buildings on the sides as the Lower School (Years Seven through Nine) and Upper School (Years Ten through VI Form), while the middle one, in a feat of imagination was called the Tower, reserved for admin, storage and offices. The dining halls were located behind the Tower and the playgrounds occupied the back grounds. Directly in front was a huge, circular expanse of grass where some of the pupils were lazing away the minutes before the bell rang. There were more grassy patches on either side, encompassing a football pitch to the right of the gates and an orchard to the left.

Michael fidgeted with his uniform tie, which was striped with teal to identify him as a Year Eight. He had already knotted the jumper around his waist by the sleeves and undone the top two buttons of the white shirt, now he just wanted to make it so the loop stopped constricting his throat. It was not gross or violating like the plug suit, but he disliked wearing what others told him to. It was restricting. He double-checked his bag again, then straightened up and looked at his guardian.

"See you later?" he asked.

"'Course!" she replied chirpily. "Pick you up at half-three. Try making some new friends while you're here."

"I'll certainly give it a shot," he nodded pathetically. Abbey tipped him a wink, pulled out, and she was off. The first bell chose that moment to ring, and as the heavy, iron gates closed between him and the street, Michael got that sinking sensation one only feels when one enters the ultimate uncontested den of conflict, violence, tedium, murk and intimidation.

In other words, school was in.

[The Wombats – _"__School __Uniforms__"_ – A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, 2007]

He weaved around the jungle of bodies. There were lots of eyes on him, even from people who were still talking to each other, giving him the impression they were talking about him. It made perfect sense that a new boy would raise a few brows, surely, but this was getting excessive, in fact it was plain annoying by the time he reached the classroom door in Lower School. Did they know he was the pilot? No, that wasn't possible, was it? Even if some press paparazzo worked it out, the reputation of the tabloids took a nasty beating only four years ago, so who in their right mind would believe a fourteen-year-old kid was at the helm of a seventy metre-high battle-robot? Although the existence of said robot and its celestial adversary were quite absurd in themselves. Best not panic about it.

He was pleasantly surprised to find Rhea waiting outside their form room door, her nose in a textbook. He greeted her and she returned the gesture quietly and civilly. At least she wasn't inaccessible. Leaning in and keeping his voice low so the rest of the group lined up near them could not hear, he said he was sorry for upsetting her. Rhea stared at him in her usual way, like she had seen him for the first time and was investigating his face, then murmured something and returned to her reading.

"I'm sorry?" he asked.

"I said you didn't upset me," she replied, "I was only acting in the commander's defence."

"_Oh_," he said, because he was too polite to say aloud what was going through his head. "So, _um_, no harm done?"

"No harm done," she concurred, eyes not leaving the page.

"What're you reading?" he asked, using a fingertip to tilt the cover up slightly so he could catch the title.

"_World __War __One __British __Poets_," she replied and readjusted her book's angle with a gentle jerk. Michael pulled his hand away.

"You like poetry then?" he asked.

"I don't know if I like it," she said, "but I find the imagery very compelling."

Michael leaned against the wall, looking from her, to the rest of their classmates, to the ceiling lights, to the tiled floor and finally back to her. Their form teacher, a doddering prune of a man who had to have passed retirement age twice over, let them in after fumbling with his key for five minutes. Rhea sat at a desk by the window, and Michael wanted to take the one on her right but was shoved aside by a brawny boy called Sugden. He landed unceremoniously on his rear and glared daggers up at the other boy, knowing a deliberate attack when he saw one. He wanted to get his own back, but decided better of it and found another chair near the front of the room between a reedy Irish boy whose name sounded like Keith or Kevvy, and a boyish girl whose name he missed on the register.

The classroom representative, a smallish Indian girl with her hair worn in bunches, made a show of introducing the class to Michael, and he endeavoured to make the biography the teacher asked for as brief as possible so he could return to his seat.

"Does anybody have any questions for Mister Silence?" asked the teacher. A girl at the back raised a hand. "Yes?" Michael noticed that she and her friends were all huddled close as if in anticipation for something.

"Are you the pilot of the giant robot?" asked the hand-raiser.

Michael froze. Rhea said nothing, but her eyes darted over in the direction of the girls. On one hand, he reckoned Abbey or Therese wouldn't be happy if he divulged any kind of sensitive information, on the other hand a little recognition would stop bullies like Sugden in their strides, unless it made them want to challenge him. He cleared his throat to speak but the class representative interrupted by pointing out the question wasn't just rude, but irrelevant, and that she wanted to deliver the latest messages from the student council before form time ran out. Michael gave her an awkward look, somewhere between spite and gratitude, and retook his seat. He could practically sense the irritation radiating from the back row.

The question would rise up to haunt him again soon enough, for when morning break rolled around, Michael found himself in the midst of a chattering crowd, all trying to get answers out of him. He literally tore himself free and headed outdoors for a bit of fresh air, only to run smack into Sugden, who laid him flat with a punch in the stomach. He collapsed at the foot of the marble steps outside the Tower, gasping for breath as his eyes turned up towards his aggressor. The brawny boy, his face pulled into a permanent smirk and his hair shaven close to his skull under a green-and-white cap, grabbed a handful of shirt and yanked Michael to his feet. Michael realised it would have served him well to be diplomatic, but the fist in his guts and the sharp marble edges poking him in the back pressed a switch in his nerves, and he was feeling equally bewildered and mad.

"What's your problem?" he wheezed.

"You…you and your stupid robot!" Sugden hissed. "How could you wreck our own city like that?"

"I never said I was the pilot," Michael defended.

"You looked pretty fucking guilty from where I was sitting in form room!" Sugden spat. "At least own up to it!"

Michael shoved him away, bending slightly for the pain in his stomach. "Maybe it was me, but even so I'd love to see you do better!" A crowd of pupils were gathered in a ring around them and chanting, _**"**__**Fight! **__**Fight! **__**Fight!**__**"**_ Sugden, who was more than glad to oblige them drove another fist into Michael's ribs but Michael, small though he may have been, was also flexible and wiry, so he looped one of his legs around both his opponent's, and the two of them collapsed in a cloud of dust, cursing and writhing limbs. They grappled ferociously. Sugden used all his weight to keep Michael on the ground, while Michael pulled up Sugden's uniform jumper over his head. His cap was knocked off and crushed under the feet of the crowd, angering him further. The larger boy rained down blows on his victim, until he felt an unexpected rush of heat between them.

"GERROF!" Michael roared. The next thing either combatant knew there was a blast, a flash, a whiff of O-zone, and Sugden was lying several yards away on his side with smoke rising off his chest. The crowd stopped chanting and were all turning to look at Michael. A few of them went over to Sugden to see if he was even alive.

"Where'd that come from?" someone asked.

"Fuck did you do?" someone else chimed in.

"Is…is he dead?"

"He's breathing! He's breathing!"

"Did you get a gun with your giant robot?"

"_Nah!_ That was fireworks! I saw 'em!"

"Fireworks? Lend us some!"

Michael crawled backwards a few inches on his hands, awkwardly trying to disentangle himself from his bag. He snatched up his jumper, which had come off during the scuffle, and pounded his escape before a teacher could get involved. Sugden had managed to sit up, or close to it, and was rubbing his sore chest with one hand while his mind attempted to make sense of whatever in fresh hell the new boy did to him. "Get off me you bummer," he told the head of sandy curls belonging to the kid who he knew was just trying to help, but God damn it he didn't want people to think he needed it because that twig got in a lucky punch.

"I told you I'm fine, seriously," he scowled, brushing off the crowd. The heat had faded, but there was a persistent tingling in his skin. It spread itself thinly like a roll of cling-film over his chest and stomach, and even when the sensation faded, there was still a sort of residue. He brushed his hand up and down himself a few times to brush off imaginary dust, adjusted his cap and stalked off. Whilst changing into his kit for P.E. later that day, he found no tell-tale marks or sore traces of pinkness, and he wondered if he should just forget it had ever taken place. The rest would before the week was out.

Michael kept to himself for the rest of the day, delving into the pages of a textbook whenever somebody came up to ask him questions, and hiding out of sight or at the back of the lines between classes. He attempted to 'phone Abbey or headquarters, since he didn't know Therese's number, but the former had her mobile switched off and the latter was too busy with work in her laboratory to answer anybody. He needed badly to know what was happening to him, and used his hands cautiously for fear of causing something he was holding to explode or catch flame. Thankfully, no such thing occurred, but it made unzipping his trousers in the lavatories a testing affair all the same, he could tell you that.

During lunchtime he was in the orchard, seated in the highest branches of a certain tree. Amid all the rush that morning he only had time to pack a sandwich for himself, so he plucked an apple from above him, polished it on his shirt, but just as he was about to bite into it he heard a loud tone ring out of the tannoy system.

"This is the headmaster, with an address for all staff, pupils and visitors. I've received word the Home Office has declared a state of emergency. Everyone please join your form teachers outside the gymnasium, and from there you will be led to your designated shelters. That is all."

On cue, the air raid klaxons blared all around him. He watched several pupils dash under him and around the corner, and as if by magic Rhea appeared in the space they had occupied a split-second previous. She was staring at him expectantly, this time with both her big, caramel crimson eyes. Michael put his apple in his lunchbox and stowed that in his bag, then he picked out a second apple and clambered down.

"We're needed," said Rhea, "come on."

"Shouldn't we wait for Abbey?" he asked her. "Getting through the city's gonna be chaos now. Got you an apple." He put the ripe red fruit in her hand. Rhea blinked at it.

"_Erm_…thank you," she murmured, and cleared her throat with the approximate volume of a ladybird with laryngitis. "The captain is waiting for us at headquarters. There's a quick route from here, hidden behind the bike sheds. Hurry up."

XXX

"First-stage alert is now in effect," reported a liaison whose role it was to vocally confirm all paramilitary functions to NERV's elite in the event of an Angel attack, "central, south and west areas evacuated and converting to fortress formation. North and east areas prepped for evacuation."

"106 Regiment have just been deployed with anti-aircraft units armed with RAPIER F.S.C. weaponry," chimed in Maya Wadia, who was situated at her console on the second of three tiers which comprised the command centre. "Helicopters and Pinzgauers are moving into position with manned H.V.M. launchers."

"Ammunition?" asked Deputy Commander Fordyce, speaking over a microphone from his vantage point high on the top tier.

"RAPIERs are carrying Mark 2As," replied Maya, "H.V.M.s have Starstreak surface-to-air missiles."

Fordyce scoffed cynically, "And they've the cheek to say _we__'__re_ wasting taxpayer's money." On his left, seated with his gloved hands knitted in front of him, Oliver Haddo merely murmured a, "Yes." The second most powerful man in the agency watched the main tele-screen with more than a small amount of pride as the buildings of London sunk into the Earth, replaced by fortified columns containing weaponry and spare electrical power cables. Barriers were erected to block all routes leading into or out of the metropolis, and sections of the roads were sucked under the kerbs, giving way to launch bays and pop-up shield plates.

NERV's coastal early warning systems had detected the presence of the Fifth Angel far enough out to sea that they had time to better ready themselves, and it was a relief to see the city's defences operating properly. Abbey asked after the statuses of civilians and non-combatants and the liaison reported that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet had taken refuge in the bunker under Downing Street while the royal family were in transit to their safe-house. All important structures were accounted for, and the Geo-Front was ready to enter lockdown. He paused so he could quickly check his earpiece, adding, "106 Regiment moving to intercept the target."

"Bring the target up on the main monitor," said Abbey.

A satellite feed of London flashed to life in front of her. It blinked twice as it searched, then by the third blink it found the alien. "Big'un, isn't he?" said Abbey rhetorically, and so it was, for unlike its vaguely humanoid predecessor, the Angel glided smoothly over the rooftops of the fortress capital. Its body was long, flat and brown. The skin was semi-diaphanous so the organs swimming about within its tubular bulk were visible save for on its angular head, a solid interrelation that came to a sharp, upward curving point at the back that protected a mass of purple muscle that could have been its neck. A pair of bony stumps extended from either side of the head, and painted on top were two big white ocelli. Its shiny core grew out from a patch of skin high on its underbelly, and beneath that was a collection of writhing, skeletal limbs that seemed to serve no practical purpose except perhaps as a sensory array, given the beast's lack of other means to find its way around. End to end it was twice as long as an Evangelion was tall, and it must be said with the best will in the world that, good intentions and bravery notwithstanding, the army found battling it to be like taking on a tank using lit matches.

"The interception's going about as well as could be expected," Therese observed, walking up behind Abbey.

"The Secretary of State for Defence has just ordered a retreat and officially handed over the responsibility of the situation to NERV," said the liaison.

"His permission is appreciated," snarked the operations chief, before turning to Maya. "Where's Michael?"

"I'm right here, ma'am!" the boy's voice came over the channel from within the entry plug, which was suspended by a hydraulic arm in the EVA cage. He was clad in his plug suit and headset. The floating Angel was swapped for the interior of Behemoth's gantry. The suspension fluid vented out through the walls and the plug was screwed sideways into the socket in the machine's spine so it ended its docking rotation upright, and the dorsal plates sealed over the top. Once it was filled with L.C.L. and cycled through the all the connections so that pilot and mount were in tune with one another, the metal monster was conveyed onto an awaiting lift platform. Michael grumbled something to himself that sounded like, "Bastards had better appreciate me saving their arses again."

"What was that, Unit 01?" asked Abbey with a scowl. She hadn't heard about her charge's fight and thusly assumed herself and the rest of her personnel to be the bastards in question. She would deal with him properly when she got him home afterwards.

"Nothing, ma'am!"

"Just as I thought. Are you ready, Michael?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Listen closely. Once you reach topside there'll be a weapons tower to your right with an auto-rifle inside," she explained. "Once you've neutralised the Angel's A.T. Field with your own, attack its core with a controlled burst. Is all that clear?"

"Crystal, ma'am."

Abbey gave the order for launch and Behemoth went rocketing up the open tunnels, coming to a shuddering halt inside a column. The front folded up, letting in the afternoon light, blinding Michael momentarily until he switched on the cockpit display's built-in glare adjuster. There was only the column's back wall to keep the Angel from seeing his EVA, so after taking a deep breath to steel himself, Michael willed Behemoth's A.T. Field into existence, causing the atmosphere to ripple as it became charged with strange, mystical energy. He went right, finding the weapons tower, and drew out the industrial-green firearm waiting inside it, then ducked behind an adjacent tower before the Angel could spot him. He did all this in one fluid motion, his synchrony leaping as he and Behemoth acted in unison.

"_Say __hello __to __my __leetle __friend,__"_ Michael sneered, affecting an Italian accent that some would deem incomprehensible. Behemoth spun out of its hiding place and sprayed the target with shot, quickly creating a shroud of smoke that rendered it invisible. Abbey barely finished yelling at him for the oversight when he heard a loud hum, followed immediately by a lash of pink fire. Behemoth jumped clumsily away from the Angel's whip as it cut off the entire front end of the Evangelion's rifle.

"What's happening up there?"

Sugden grunted as he hefted himself the rest of the way out of a manhole and reached down to help his lifelong best mate, who was named Keagan Albright. The shorter boy already had out the handy-cam he'd gotten from his older brother last birthday and the taller thumbed up the peak of his cap and took out a pair of folding binoculars for a better look. It was no small feat to get out of the shelters once they were retracted, but as it so happened, Keagan's father was the chief of one of the teams charged with maintaining the London fort, meaning many a late night's spying had given the boy room to copy down notes left out by accident, and he had memorised several ley tunnels and secret passages that connected the cities above and below.

"He's losing!" said Sugden, coughing on the dust-cloud flung at them from the fight.

"Probably just sizing up the monster," replied Keagan after he was done pulling on an anti-pollution scarf. He started up his camera and aimed it. "Shift a bit to the left, Sugs. You're in my light."

"Soz, Keag," Sugden mumbled, "but if shit gets real, we're out of here. Get me?" Keagan said nothing. "I said, _'__you __get __me?__'_" Keagan told him to have faith. He thought of something to say, decided better of it and settled for shaking his head.

The front of the tower to Behemoth's left opened up, revealing another rifle, but before the EVA could take it, the Angel's second whip flew out, rending the whole thing in three pieces. Behemoth rolled out of the way, the line of concentrated light only shaving the top off one of its shoulder pylons. The pilot shook his head as he righted his mount and turned to face the Angel as it loomed out of the dust. Its dual weapons hung from the protrusions on its head, and as Michael decided there was nothing for it but to charge the beast headlong, a whip sliced through a tower of ammunition. Michael screamed, the resultant explosion tossed him backwards across the danger-zone, setting him down roughly in the tarmac. His horn demolished a pillar-box and several letters fluttered out and stuck over his eyes.

"Fuck this, Keag!" growled Sugden, grabbing his friend by the arm. "I'm not getting flattened out here! If we're quick maybe we won't get in trouble!"

The Angel snapped its knout again, hacking the EVA's umbilical cable to bits before wrapping around its right ankle. Michael hissed as sympathetic burning engulfed his own, and one of the cockpit displays changed to a digital clock that began rapidly counting down from 5:00:00 in big yellow numbers.

"You've only got five minutes of power!" Abbey was calling him over the channel. "Retreat! Get out of its range!"

Too late. Behemoth stumbled groggily into an upright position, only to be dragged to the ground by the Angel with a sickening crunch and hefted upside down into the air. Michael's stomach lurched as he was hurled, Behemoth's limbs flopping uselessly for purchase, and then going completely silent as it slammed into the middle of the three juxtaposed buildings, it weight forcing it from its foundations and knocking chunks of brick off its neighbours, which rained down and bounced off against the robot's armour. Inside, the L.C.L. marginally cushioning him from the shockwaves that otherwise rocked his huge outer body, Michael heard perfectly what was going on and was well aware he needed to get up, to escape, but the neural feedback had utterly paralysed him to Abbey's panicked commands. Worse still was that the Fifth Angel, like a predator, would be on him once more in moments.

[KMFDM – _"__Juke __Joint __Jezebel __(Metropolis __Mix)__"_ – Nihil, 1995]

Save for Professor Haddo, nobody at Central Dogma even noticed Rhea's presence until she materialised between Abbey Creed and Therese Sternsinger and piped up, "Unit 01 is incapacitated. I will provide support in Unit 00."

"That's impossible," protested the chief scientist, trying her hardest to control her surprise to see the pale little sliver of a girl, "you know full well Lahash isn't designed to enter a real combat situation. It was a mistake to send it out last time. We were lucky to get you back in one piece."

"If you do not deploy me to support him," said Rhea, insistent in her steadiness, "pilot Silence will die."

Their debate would have continued were it not for a loud, "Do it," from Abbey.

"You can't be serious!" Therese spluttered.

"I expect Unit 00 to be out there long enough to provide Unit 01 with covering fire," Abbey pushed on, "Michael will handle the rest. It's the only way."

Therese knew she was right in her heart but for as long as the two women had known each other every argument was a battle in itself; a battle for the last word. She pointed out that Unit 00 had not yet passed safety inspections since it was rebuilt, not to mention its ability to operate in tandem with its pilot was still under scrutiny. Despite apparent success last time, Lahash's movements had been sluggish and its A.T. Field lower than nominal parameters. In the end they settled on deferring to the stoic director, whose only response was a curt, kingly nod of approval. Abbey patched a microphone to the techies in the cage and told them, "Pre-arm EVA Unit 00 and ready it for launch!"

There was a collective, "Yes, ma'am!" from the boiler-suited men and women on duty there. Rhea wordlessly excused herself to go change into her plug suit. None of the adults saw that glint in her ruby eyes.

Of confidence, or purpose? Even she wasn't completely certain, but it drove her onwards all the same.

3:00:00.

Michael groaned as the feeling came back to his arms and legs. He shook his head, ready to get Behemoth on its feet, when he noticed something out the corner of his eye that stopped his heart. Hunkered between the splayed fingers of the EVA's right hand were two human bodies. Had he come down just a little in either direction, they would have been crushed under his palm. The two near-victims looked up at him, and he gasped out a jet of bubbles into the L.C.L. when he realised it was Sugden and his blonde friend. The Angel's shadow fell over them, and its whips would have cut them all to ribbons if something had not caught them on the upswing. Behemoth's sibling robot, Lahash, dug its heels into the ground and yanked with all its might, sending the Angel sailing horizontally across the cityscape, until it crashed between a set of parallel columns. The beast writhed and Lahash bent low with steam rising from its palms.

"Rhea!" Michael squawked his fellow pilot's name. A screen on the wall of the cockpit shifted, showing the girl's face in an expression of extreme discomfort. "You…you saved me…!"

"I'll keep it at bay," she told him, "let these civilians into your entry plug and retreat underground." Next she turned her EVA around and broke into a run, hoisting the giant SIG P226 handgun and firing blast after blast. Michael cast his gaze at the terrified youths below and, swallowing his anxiety, nodded his head and ejected the plug halfway from Behemoth's back.

"You two!" he called through the external tannoy. "Get inside quickly!"

"What makes you think you can allow unauthorised civilians in the plug with you?" Therese chided him.

"I'm authorising him to do it!" Abbey chimed in. "What're you waiting for, Michael?"

The sliding panel of the plug whooshed open, spilling some of its L.C.L. onto the ground. Behemoth shifted its hand to lift up its new passengers and the two boys hopped in, indignantly crying out as they got soaked through. One of them whined that his camera was ruined. Michael had every intention of beating a retreat as planned, until he spied Lahash on its knees with one of the Angel's whips coiled around its throat, while the other one brutally flogged its chest and stomach. Any attempt to contact Rhea only served to pay him audience to her pained cries and moans. He couldn't leave her like this…and to Hell with any stupid chain of command that ordered him otherwise!

The Evangelion dithered drunkenly. The introduction of foreign bodies into the cockpit caused what the technical team termed, "Noise in the nerve impulse system," and sent unpleasant waves all through Michael's body. He whispered Rhea's name as if to remind himself of his goal, blocking out Abbey ordering him to obey her orders and fall back and his passengers seconding it. Michael sent out a mental signal. The spaulder attached to his mechanical monster's left shoulder slid open and out popped a black handle with a pommel not dissimilar to a fighting knife. Behemoth drew it out all the way and the glimmering, stiletto-patterned blade lit up with a faint silvery current.

"UNIT 01! PULL BACK! PULL BACK NOW!"

"SHE SAID PULL BACK! NEW KID!"

"RUN AWAY! GOD'S SAKE!"

1:00:00.

The plug displays all turned a severe shade of scarlet. Alarms went off everywhere, but all Michael could hear was the blood pumping in his ears. Adrenaline arched. His muscles tightened like bundles of wires. He screamed and Behemoth surged forth. The Angel allowed its current victim to slump to the ground in a lifeless heap, and sent both its whips towards the oncoming threat, piercing Behemoth's guts in two different places. It should have stopped there, but on it came, not deterred in the slightest by the searing agony of its stomach being burnt to a crisp. Michael swore loudly and plunged his progressive knife deep into the Angel's core, breaking effortlessly through its hard skin and penetrating the hot slimy heart interred within.

0:25:00.

Sparks spewed out of the core. The Angel fought desperately to cripple its attacker by increasing the heat from its panoplies but all it did was anger the demon! If its alien brain was at all capable of feeling anything besides unending dedication to its prime directive, then it could be said without a doubt the Angel was very confused and very, very afraid.

0:15:00.

_I __am __dying!_ shrieked whatever constituted the Angel's mind. _It __is __killing __me __and __will __not __be __stopped!_

0:10:00.

Rhea watched Behemoth at its savage work, and asked herself if the pilot was really the one in control, or if it was Behemoth herself. She always felt something like a presence in her EVA that required her to mentally negotiate before she was allowed to exert her will. She imagined that for her team-mate it was no different, except the way Unit 01 went berserk against its first opponent despite being devoid of power for eleven-point-five seconds (she read the reports) gave her pause to consider differently. Did Pilot Silence have his own way of taming the wild beast hiding in all the garish armour? A way so potent it made her, who had lived her entire life for the project, seem like little more than a rank amateur?

Another unfamiliar feeling welled up in her at that point. It was awe.

0:05:00.

"_**DIE!**__**"**_ Michael roared, but blinded half by the shower of white sparks and half by his own bubbling bloodlust it came out as a guttural, inhuman sound. The heart gave way with a slurp and a squelch, and the progressive knife sunk in all the way down to the hilt.

0:00:00.

The colour fizzled out of the Angel's core and its whips hung, lump and rubbery, from its head-shoulders, their intense heat dispelling almost immediately. The inside of Unit 01's cockpit also went dark, and Michael's muscles, which had been bunched to breaking point, all unwound at the same time, flushing out all the spite and tension he had piled up, leaving only a sort of horrified relief that he had come through alive. He let his grip on the joysticks go slack, hung his head, and sobbed. In the shadows behind him, Sugden and Keagan watched him quiver, but neither said anything for a while to heckle the sounds of his crying.

After what felt like an æon, however, Sugden leaned over the side of the control chair and asked softly, "You all right?"

Michael wiped his face on the back of his suit's glove, which was really unnecessary because his tears were washed away in the L.C.L., peered back at the other boys. He gave the both of them a thumbs-up. Sugden and Keagan sighed and relaxed, though the former would remember what he had seen there that day. He had thought it must have been so easy before, no different to playing a computer game, but today opened his eyes. He and his friend nearly lost their lives, except this twig, with his mop of curls and daft accent, just risked himself to save them and the quiet girl despite the adults yelling at him and a monster pounding him to bits. If _he__'__d_ been at the wheel, he might not have wasted the time. He'd didn't get why, but he'd make sure to be nicer to him in future for it.

Keagan piped up, "So how do we get down…and why can we breathe underwater?"

XXX

The debriefing room was a lot closer to a detention centre and distinctly less welcoming. The grimy metal wall was bare apart from the big NERV emblem painted directly behind him, plus the only illumination came through the open door, which was mostly blocked by a uniformed silhouette. Michael was not sure if he liked this side of Abbey at all. Nobody got angry here, which he would have been able to deal with. He could defend himself from shouting, but the level of her voice sounded disappointed rather than upset. That was far worse. It reminded him that he was only a child. The Third Child, as it happened, but a child nonetheless.

"Why did you ignore my orders?" she asked. "I'm your superior operative. Did you forget that?"

"No, ma'am," he said.

"I can't afford to tolerate insubordination, from you or from anybody. What we do here isn't a game, and it doesn't make any of us heroes. It needs to be done."

Michael looked at her. "Funny that," he said, "when I think of what you said the day after I beat the Fourth Angel, about how proud I should be of myself for saving the city and all that." He knew she was glaring at him across the umbra. He didn't say sorry. Why should he? "I agree, though," he added, "I did what needed doing." He heard her sigh. "How's Rhea?" he asked. Now he was an adult again, exactly like her. It felt better.

"She's got a bump and a few burns, but all-in-all she'll live. That's more than I can say for myself once I submit my report to the commanders," she said. "What they never tell you in the cartoons is how much red tape's involved every time to deploy a giant walking super-weapon." Michael stifled a chuckle. She couldn't help but smile a little, though she was still annoyed he had talked back to her. She liked to think she wore another face at home and at work, and the work-face was getting harder to maintain since his arrival. "Engaging the Angel with nearly no power was risky," she told him eventually, "but then again what I authorised was no better. I'm glad you came through but don't always depend on good luck. It won't last forever." She excused herself, leaving the door open for him.

[The Postal Service – _"__Natural __Anthem__"_ – Give Up, 2003]

Michael flexed the digits of his right hand, enjoying the way the orangey material squeaked. He felt foolish for committing dumb mistakes after a month's worth of training, he felt glad for killing the Angel, but knowing that Rhea and the boys were alive felt like his greatest accomplishment. He inhaled deep, let it out, detached his headset and went to get changed into the mufti. He passed Rhea in the hallway and stopped to thank her for coming to his rescue, and she hesitantly returned the gesture for doing the same.

How could he possibly know it was the second time she had ever voiced gratitude towards anyone, or that her cheeks were going pink as he sauntered off down the hallway, or that the boy who had been so shaky, frightened and friendless, had made no less than four lifelong companions already, and that more were soon on their way? How could he have known that his decision to take a walk that evening instead of meeting Abbey as usual so he'd be able to watch the buildings emerging would see him broken over the bonnet of an oncoming car?

[Frank Sinatra – _"__Fly __Me __to __the __Moon__"_ – It Might as Well Be Swing, 1964]


	5. After the Accident P1

**Chapter 5  
><strong>"**After the Accident, Part One"**

[E.S. Posthumous – _"Ashielf Pi"_ – Cartographer, 2008]

Rain poured in a freak burst even by English standards. It was so hard as to leave anyone fool enough to go out wading ankle-deep in water. The drops banged loudly against the windows and nobody, not even the teachers at Saint Germain Secondary found the necessary motivation to pay attention to their lessons. It was during morning geography that Sugden found himself sitting outside the headmaster's office, staring rather listlessly out the row of windows in front of him. Next to him was the reason he was in trouble again. A nerk from Mister Temple's form who went around saying he got beaten up by the new boy, and while he wasn't denying the fight was a loss, Michael hadn't beaten him up. It was all because of that weird light. Anyone who saw it should have stood up for him, unfortunately it seemed only two or three people could remember, that number not including Michael because he had been missing for three days now. Truth be told, Sugden was getting a bit worried. He kept cycling to the battle with the Fifth Angel and the way Michael had acted inside the Evangelion. The big man act must have been a front. The cockpit was completely dark but he knew he could trust his ears. Keagan had not shut up about how amazing he thought it all was, but it was the pilot crying that stuck with him and made him believe otherwise. The sound of a door up the hallway opening and closing caught his attention. There was still half an hour before class ended. The culprit turned out to be Rhea Cipher carrying a stack of textbooks between her hands. Sugden got up, giving the nerk a curt, "Fuck off," when he protested, and darted after the pale girl.

"_Oi!_ Rhea!" Sugden skidded to a halt in front of her.

"Yes?" she asked, without even a blink.

He stopped. How to phrase this? He was never the sort to show a great deal of concern for anybody, save perhaps his younger sisters. He decided to take the direct route. "You work with the new boy, right?"

"You mean Pilot Silence," she said. "You are concerned for his welfare?"

He nodded. "I've not seen him in three days. Who wouldn't be?"

"He is recovering in hospital," she told him. "He was involved in an incident."

"Hospital?" Sugden's eyes bulged. "What happened? Is he okay?"

"A car ran over him. The damage was not fatal," she said. "It is predicted he will be able to return to full active duty in five weeks."

Sugden blinked. "You're shitting me. Only five weeks? Who the hell's up and about five weeks after a hit-and-run?"

"I am not, _'shitting,'_ you," said Rhea, "the car suffered the greater damage. Excuse me." Sugden stared after her retreating back even after she had left the hallway, not certain what she had said was real or not. He was a far cry from an A student, but he wasn't thick either. He took off his cap to scratch the side of his head.

[Madness – _"Baggy Trousers"_ – Absolutely, 1980]

Somebody behind him said, "You are supposed to remain seated until you're allowed into the office."

Sugden snarled as he turned, "Jesus! Will you shut the _fuck_ up you massive dil- _oh_, hello, headmaster." It would be needless to state the headmaster was less than impressed, especially in another ten minutes' time when Sugden elucidated that so long as the other boy, who was called Fletch, continued acting like a muggy bitch, he was morally obligated to treat him as such. The pair of them ended up in the first aid room and the office needed a new desk lamp.

XXX

"Our first thought was that those responsible might be agents from MI5," Abbey reported to Professors Haddo and Fordyce, "on closer inspection, however, we discovered no standard means of identification."

"Not even wallets or official cards?" asked Fordyce, sounding incredulous, for it seemed a rather haphazard and un-military thing to do. Going unrecognised was the sort of thing villains in old spy films got up to, but being unable to recognise each other presented not just clumsy, unrealistic thinking, it was also unnecessarily dangerous to enterprise.

"None," said Abbey, "they may have been abandoned prior to the mission but that's not likely. The suits they wore were custom tailored. We currently have them in both in solitary. They are receiving medical aid, and are being subjected to D.N.A. tests to find out who they are."

Haddo leaned forward across his polished, black desk, the glow from the intricately patterned, glass-covered rivers carved in the floor reflected off his spectacles. "If the case should be that they are unwilling to share their delicate information, I give you authorisation to use soothsayer on them."

Fordyce and Abbey both tried to hide their winces, but knew it was a pointless exercise in front of their leader. "Is there a problem, Captain Creed?" he asked.

"No, sir," she suffocated a stammer, "I'll make a note of your recommendation."

"Good," said Haddo, withdrawing into his chair with a look of satisfaction. "You are excused, Captain. Return to your work."

"Thank you, director," she gave a salute and marched out from the room, frankly quite happy to be out of there.

"Fordyce," said Haddo to his former teacher, confidant and now second-in-command, "please be so kind as to check the progress of our investment over in Düsseldorf. I've been inconveniently summoned to convene with _them_, and I'd be relieved that such a sensitive matter be dealt with by you." That same smirk again, always that same damned self-confident smirk. It had irritated Fordyce when they were mentor and student. Today it prodded at him just the same as ever. Still, it _was_ indeed important work that needed overseeing, and he _was_ the only other man capable of doing so, and in that respect he answered compliantly, left and thanked his stars he could sit out on another one of those hedonistic meetings. Unseen by him, Haddo removed his pristine white coat and donned a shroud. All the lights in the office, including the ones in the floor, blinkered out. He was plunged into pure darkness. He retook his seat and seven rectangles of colour opened in mid-air before him, shining out of projectors hidden high in the walls. To his left, blue, yellow and green, to his right, red, purple and peach, at the far end opposing him, white.

"Ladies, gentlemen," he greeted shrewdly, "I bid you welcome."

XXX

The two prisoners were still undergoing reconstruction in the agency hospital's intensive care unit, so after receiving the medical staff's updates, Abbey went to Michael's room. He was over the worst according to his doctor, who admitted to being just as alarmed as she, and gave her a merry, "Boy's got some friends in high places," to reassure her. It didn't help, but she smiled all the same. She took off her uniform jacket, put it folded at the foot of the bed and sat herself on the chair left to one side. She didn't say anything or talk to him, she felt strange doing that, but was glad to know he was going to get better. She caught a glimpse of the gun tucked inside her jacket because the butt of the grip poked out slightly and it reminded her of the remarkable incident, though she still had difficulty swallowing it.

He wanted to walk home so he could see the fortress transform back into a city. She didn't see a problem with that until he reminded her of his own terrible sense of direction. She gave him the map she stored in her glove compartment, since it was no longer needed by her, anyway. He was off again like a shot, and Abbey spent the next couple of minutes pondering how much her young charge was starting to contradict her initial view of him. His confidence was growing and occasionally he helped himself to what was in the fridge, but Michael still kept his recognisable habits. He was so proper when he ate, never left messes, never left lights on if he didn't need them and never expected her to do his washing, which was great because Abbey was a proud lout in her spare time. She never took offence if Therese called her, "one of the men," years prior because she acknowledged it to be a good and true achievement. The Silence grandparents had raised him well. Well, washing was one of the household jobs she was fine with, so she'd make certain he had clean clothes to put on when he finally woke up.

[Kraftwerk – _"Radioactivity"_ – The Mix, 1991]

Abbey sighed, as a little voice in her head, it might be hers, or Therese's, or Michael's, told her to stop this long stream of consciousness rubbish and face what she had seen him do to that car and its occupants. She leaned back into the chair and stared up at the ceiling, letting her thoughts drift backwards into her memories by three days.

She could understand why he wanted to walk home topside. Even though people weren't supposed to be out while the city was in its transformative phase for safety reasons, seeing the change never failed to touch something in her heart, and being right in the middle of the event must have been amazing. She envied him that opportunity, she admitted to herself, and it was one of the main reasons she decided to tail him in secret, not to mention his terrible sense of direction. She'd given him over her map from the glove compartment when he told him, since she was confident enough to not need it anymore (_Sat Nav_ helped in emergencies), but still, she worried about that little muppet. After passing the same intersection four times, he had finally worked out the right direction, which was good because it was getting difficult to keep her mouth shut, when the car of doom screeched out of the abyss. He was in the middle of the road, she in the alley between a D.I.Y. shop and a laundrette, with no time to run out and shove him aside, not unless she wanted to end up in a body-cast. Acting on her next best instinct she went for her pistol, even though part of her knew she wouldn't be able to fire off a decent shot. She had spotted the car too late! She fired all the same, putting a hole through the back windows. The man in the front passenger seat reacted.

Abbey cried out. Michael gasped, responding, but she could see in his face that it wasn't to her. Something came over him for half an instant, like a mask had been peeled back. He was bent double, arms crossed over his face, and then he was acting. It was like a rush of air first, making his hair and clothes flap and then there was heat. He erected a wall between himself and the oncoming carnage. The entire front end of the car began to collapse into itself, but it kept going, pushing ahead without any realisation, and then with a great bang, both parties were being tossed away from one another. The car lifted up onto its rear end like a frightened beast, then it fell completely over and its own weight crumpled its roof, trapping the occupants. Meanwhile, Michael was bent in half near the top of a lamppost with a thick crunch, then he slid down to pavement level. She had panicked, but kept enough of her wits about her to 'phone for medical assistance before racing over to the boy.

She was able to keep him awake until help arrived, patting his cheek and speaking to him in hushed, frantic tones. He coughed up blood and his eyes, though only halfway open, were flitting fitfully. They should have checked him for epilepsy during his last hospital visit. It was a clumsy oversight. She ordered an M.R.I. scan as soon as it was safe to do so. She was told they needed to wait until he regained consciousness. It all sounded to her like more excuses but then she wasn't a practitioner of medicine in any way, shape or form and couldn't comment past a vague threat and an insistence on them doing whatever they had to do to get him stable. To their credit, he was stable if the readouts on the monitoring equipment were any true indication.

Abbey brushed some hair out of Michael's face, and felt a pang of guilt in her heart as she was reminded that this was only a young boy, barely into his adolescence. He had enough problems guaranteed him in the next few years, and battling with Angels was the last thing he needed. The soldier part of her told her that it could not be helped. The Second Impact forced everyone to pull their own weight in this new bid to survive. The rules were the same, but the game-board was shifted. _Not quite._ They had been changed a bit. NERV changed them. NERV created secret super-weapons, towering robot monsters. Evangelions. They were also changed in another respect, because unless she was sorely out of touch, human beings did not generate A.T. Fields.

She realised she was thirsty and went to find a water cooler.

_Water. Flowing upwards. A drop touches the darkness above. Its blue light radiates, small but not ignorable._

Michael's bloodcurdling screams carried him all the way to the waking world, scaring the shit out of the nurse who checked on his charts. She scampered off (the poor dear must've been new) and, after spending a few seconds letting it sink in where the hell he was, Michael's head dropped on his pillows. He watched the unfamiliar ceiling and loosed a sigh, thinking to himself about how thankful he was to be unable to remember his dreams. It was what kept him from being scared of going back to sleep. He slowly sat up, only to slouch forward, resting his crossed arms across his lap. His memory was blank but there was still some residue of the dream. The scent of blood. All around him. In the air. On his clothes. Inside his head. He glanced at his left arm, gingerly raising it to his face. He sniffed once. It was gone, the smell was gone, but it was still in his mind.

"Pilot Silence, why are you sniffing your hand?"

The small voice caused him to start, gathering up the hospital blanket in front of him like a shield. Rhea stood in the open doorway, her expression as blank as ever.

"I wasn't doing anything weird or pervy!" he squeaked. "W…what are you doing here?"

"I was concerned," she replied, the last word feeling alien on her tongue. "Tony Sugden asked me who wouldn't be."

"The kid who tried to lay me out?" Michael asked. Rhea nodded. Michael tried to stifle a chuckle, but it broke through and he fell against his pillows, closing his eyes and cackling. Abbey came back in then, alerted by the noises, and looked amazed to see him. She sighed in relief.

"Don't scare me like that again," she said, "or any nurses."

"I'll try," he said once he was calm. He was given a mixture to restore the electrolytes he had lost while unconscious, and discharged a few days later, once he had regained the strength to walk about unaided. The area around his ribs was still very tender and Abbey insisted he take it easy. He actually started to miss sitting in the entry plug, because despite the lengthy and mindless synchronisation tests he had to undergo to ensure his piloting abilities remained unimpaired, he could take some solace in the idea that it served an important purpose. Maybe not a purpose he fully comprehended but a purpose nonetheless. The comfort of the control chair's shape-remembering material outdid the coppery smell of L.C.L.

Presently he was sitting on the sofa in the living room of the flat, bare feet propped on a pouffe, watching repeats of, _'One Foot in the Grave,' _on television. A couple of textbooks and a few homework assignments, which Rhea had brought over once she got out of school, were piled up on the table. He had finished most of them already, having had scant little else to keep him occupied during his time off. Michael was never the sort to go bunking off classes at the easiest opportunity, nor was he the sort to throw a sickie. He actually enjoyed learning, at least most subjects anyway, and the boredom of staying home was fast to set in with him. He insisted he was quite capable of moving about, but was told to stay away from anything strenuous until he could bend over without setting off his ribs again. He told Abbey, nay, he _insisted_ to her that the adults were all making a big fuss over nothing. She informed him that adults excelled in doing so and that if he was so upset about it, she was more than happy to demand more assignments from the school just for him. Michael had stopped arguing with her, because even he was not _that_ fond of learning. The days were all melding into one, he slept when he had nothing to do, often sleeping too much so he woke up with a god-awful headache, popped painkillers, then lounged about waiting for stuff to happen. He browsed the 'net on Abbey's P.C., or practised from his cello book (in all the excitement of the last few weeks he had nearly forgotten about it and knew his nan would blow a fuse if she ever found out), but even those started to lose their appeal soon enough. Abbey was working long hours lately, so the only person around that he could chat to was Pen-Pen. Not that he didn't like the big silly bird, but he was hardly versed in starting conversations with flightless avians that smelled like fish and _Stella_. What Michael Silence craved was to go outside, but his accident did a good job of knocking his gradually rising confidence back to its usual lowness, making him nervous just to go across to the nearby neighbourhood shopping centre, which was separated from the estate by a main road.

He was starting to drift again, barely registering that it was almost four o'clock, when he heard muffled voices, followed by a knock at the door. He brushed aside the book in his lap and inched his way to the door. There was an electronic monitor on the wall beside it, which turned on automatically when someone crossed an invisible security laser. Sugden and Keagan were on the display, both made slightly distorted by the fisheye view of the camera. The smaller boy's head twitched on his scrawny neck like an owl, while the taller's was bowed so the peak of his cap covered his face. He opened the door only after making sure the chain was bolted in place and offered a meek, "Yes?"

"So this is where you've been hiding," said Keagan. He nudged his companion in the stomach with his elbow. "Told you it was the right address. Now you've gotta say it."

"You're the master, I bow to thee," grumbled Sugden. "You _can_ take the chain off, kid. I'm not gonna thump you."

Michael made a cautious expression, then he undid the bolt and let them in properly. "Come in," he said. They did, but Sugden stayed close to the doorway, like he felt unsure of himself in somebody else's home. Keagan was quaking, quite fit to explode with questions and barely holding back the tidal wave to come.

"I can't really talk about classified stuff," Michael expected it and spoke perhaps a little too soon. The Irish boy deflated visibly, but it didn't take him long to perk up again.

"Not a problem," he shrugged, "we understand. I just wanted to say how great it was to be in that cockpit and…well, maybe ask if there's a way for me to become a pilot?"

"He's been jawing on about this non-stop," Sugden sighed, "put his mind at ease, would you?"

"Whatever it takes I'll do it!" Keagan exclaimed. He clenched his fists in determination. "I'll do anything!"

"He will. Man's a nutter."

"I…I don't really know how it works," Michael admitted, trying not to disappoint the excited boy again in such a short amount of time, "but maybe you can ask Abbey about it when she's in."

Keagan nodded so fast and so eagerly Michael was sure his head would drop off. "Listen," said Sugden, "we're not staying long or anything. I have to go see my sister in hospital."

"Please give her my regards," said Michael. "You were right. I should've been more careful. I feel horrible that she got hurt because of me." He squawked, surprised, when two big fists got a hold of his shirt and lifted him off his feet. His ribs hurt from the shift in weight and from his sharp intake of breath.

"Don't tell me you're sorry!" Sugden barked. Michael detected the pepperoni pizza he'd had for lunch, they were so close. "I haven't been able to stop agonising over that whole mess since it happened! I'm angry at myself for not being there! I'm the idiot who screwed up! I don't need you apologising for doing a job, making me feel even worse, so knock it on the head before I give you something to be sorry about!"

A pause.

Keagan clapped a couple of times. "And there's the BAFTA award right there, ladies and gentlemen."

"Shut it, Keag."

"Shutting it."

Sugden let Michael descend back to the floor. "It was wrong of me to hit you, even if you did pull that sci-fi superman shit. You're not the one to blame. Anyone who says you are…I'm gonna mash them up good. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Michael nodded. It was safer that way.

"Good," said Sugden, "now punch me."

Michael did a double-take. "What?"

"I'll feel better if you punch me," said Sugden, "and a proper one. Not whatever you did in the school-ground. A man-punch. It's the only free hit you'll ever get so make it a good one."

"I can't hit you!" Michael squeaked.

"Embarrassing, isn't he?" said Keagan, rolling his eyes behind his spectacles. He already had a handy-cam primed. Michael had no idea if it was a different one or if the old one did indeed survive its dip in the entry plug, and he was too astounded by what he was being asked to do to care.

"Come on, hit me!" Sugden insisted. "It's like…an honour thing now! Punch me and we can start over as mates!"

Michael panicked and flung his fist out. Sugden caught it with ease. For a second, fear welled up inside the Third Child, and he braced for the return hit. It never came. "Keep your thumb on the outside," said Sugden in a serious tone, "you punch me like that and you'll only wind up hurting yourself."

He rearranged Michael's digits into a better position with his own rough and callused hands. "Try again. Don't hold back." He went stock still with his eyes opened.

"You can cut the tension with a knife, ladies and gents," said Keagan. Both boys told him to shut it. "Shutting it," he said.

_If this is what it takes to make it better,_ Michael thought to himself. He pulled his arm back past his shoulder, winced, let out a growl to cover it, and struck. He didn't have the muscle to knock Sugden off his feet or even make him give ground, but he left a pinkish mark on his thick cheek, and the meaty smack of flesh on flesh resounded all around them for what felt like an eternity. Keagan froze. Michael froze.

"_Fucking. Owch,"_ said Sugden, closing one eye and putting up a hand to cup his sore face. He smiled through the pain. "There. Wasn't that hard, was it?"

"Guess not," Michael returned the smile. He put his other hand over the knuckles of his fist. It was a lot easier to whack an enemy with giant purple-armoured hands of death than with his own measly ones, but he bit back the urge to howl and swear at the ruby throbbing sensation in his bones.

Keagan lowered the handy-cam from his face and gave them both a sheepish expression. "I left the shutter closed. Mind doing that over again?" Their collective glare prompted him to raise his hands and add that he was only joking. Then they were all laughing. Michael had once read this old story where three men became friends by making a vow while drunk under a peach tree. He imagined they felt a bit like him right now. Confused, but somehow knowing the experience was theirs and theirs alone. He knew they couldn't get drunk. Abbey would go utterly spare if they touched her stash, but there were other ways to symbolise a bond. One he oddly wished Rhea had been part of.

"Before you go," he said, "can I get either of you a drink?"

"None for me," said Keagan, then sniffed the air. "Here, why's it smell like fish?"

"The landlord," said Michael.

The guests, as one, _"Eh?"_

From behind them, _"WARK!"_

"_**AAAUGH!"**_

XXX

Abbey wished Therese were doing this instead of her. She stood in an observation room with Maya Wadia, nervously substituting her teacher and superior, and the chief of Section Two, NERV's intelligence division. He was a dark man with short hair and a lived-in face covered by creases. Moses Tulp was his name, and he was accompanied by two of his senior operatives. The spooks always worked in threes. Between them and the room beyond was a panel of one-way glass. On the other side of it, the unknown driver and his accomplice had been strapped into chairs beside a low, plastic table. All of it was bolted down for reasons of safety. Two more of Tulp's men were with them, wearing fleshy-coloured earpieces so Abbey could channel her questions direct through them.

"We're ready to begin, Captain Creed," said Tulp.

"Is this all being recorded?" she asked. Tulp nodded.

"Maya, take back-up," said Abbey. Maya nodded and switched on the data-pad resting across her lap, the one she had designed personally to take transcripts over radio frequencies. It did not make mistakes like a human scribe, and was less likely to pick up interference or outside noise like a standard digital Dictaphone. Maya insisted it was nothing special, she had just built it while tinkering with some spare parts she found left around her bedroom, but it had already become a favoured piece of kit amongst her colleagues in the technical department, who had gone so far as to integrate adjustable settings, allowing it to properly log the results of diagnostic runs or help them update the troubleshooting procedures. It made things happen a lot faster. You could always tell the original, her own, apart by the glittery stickers she plastered all over the back. The machine gave a cute little, _"boop-fweep,"_ as it activated and homed in on the correct signal. Eyebrows were raised, nothing was said.

[Winsile – _"Plasma"_ – The Blizzard, 2011]

So, the questioning began. It didn't go very well, not in the early stages. The prisoners, scarred and discoloured as they were from surgery, refused to speak a word. Abbey found their loyalty almost admirable, except she had a sneaking suspicion that loyalty wasn't in the cards. They were keeping quiet out of fear of their employers. She could understand that, though it struck her as pitiable. She had no camaraderie with her own boss, but the day she was scared of bookworms like Haddo was a long, long way away. Without even blinking, she ordered in the soothsayer. It was a particularly potent form of truth serum, one that was supposed to have been permanently decommissioned from military usage. The gathered men and women of NERV were about to be reminded why.

"Let's try this again," said Abbey once it was administered. "Were your orders to kill the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01?"

The prisoners said nothing, then after a moment, they started to convulse. Their bodies wanted to bend in ways barred by the restraints, forcing them into bizarre and inhuman shapes. The driver vomited profusely on the floor, his accomplice bled out of both nostrils. Maya squeezed her eyes shut and covered her mouth with her palm.

"It'll stop if you cooperate," Abbey said through one of her suited-and-booted proxies, "if it's retribution from whoever sent you that's keeping you quiet, I can guarantee NERV will provide protection."

"You can't protect us," whimpered the driver, "no-one can."

"Not from them," agreed the other man, "they already know what you're doing. We're dead men. This…this sick serum's nothing."

A green light blinked under the skin of his stomach. The same for the driver, who flew immediately into a panic. His screams were so loud that he drowned out the next thing his accomplice said.

"Get medics in there!" Tulp hissed to one of his aides.

"We don't owe them anything," screeched the other man, though the driver disagreed. He was raving. A man possessed. "We were meant to incapacitate him. Take him to headquarters. Injure if we had to. Not kill." He was slurring his words.

"Stop it!" wailed the driver.

"WHY? WE'RE ALREADY DEAD!" his companion spat at him. "THOSE BASTARDS STOLE OUR LIVES! FUCK THEM!"

"God, God, I don't want to die," the driver sobbed. "Save my soul, heavenly father. I don't want to die a virgin."

"W…" Abbey steadied herself, "where is this headquarters?"

"D-don't know, we don't operate like you lot…we were supposed to…rende…ren…pick-up point…take…_oh_, God…m' stomach hurts…!"

"Where is the pick-up point?"

He mentioned two specific streets. Masked paramedics arrived on the scene, scalpels out for the urgent procedure that was to come. The lights blinked, bright and crimson like emergency beacons. "Ax…" he gargled through a film of bubbling froth and bile. _**"Ax…on!"**_ An electronic whistle emitted from somewhere in the men's bodies, and then the window was blocked by a wave of gore. Maya fled the observation room, already heaving her guts out. Abbey and Tulp both swore loudly. The agents still in the room were crying out or retching. The head of operations broke the microphone she was clutching clean in half.

"Jesus fuck!" she choked.

The data-pad, impartial, got everything.


	6. After the Accident P2

**Chapter 6  
><strong>"**After the Accident, Part Two"**

"Still having your brood, are you?"

"Not funny, Therry," Abbey scowled from behind her interweaved fingers, "Last night I watched two men, both completely insane from anger and fear explode not six feet in front of me. There wasn't enough left of them to even sweep up."

"Yes, I had to send Maya home today," Therese sighed and took a seat beside her old chum at the cafeteria table. "She's got the constitution of a china doll, the poor thing. Can't do a thing right now."

"She'll persevere," Abbey snipped. "Compared to us she's still a kid."

"She's 23-and-a-half," Therese scoffed. Abbey gave her a look that told her she wasn't in the mood to argue. Therese let it drop and took a sip from her cardboard coffee cup. "You'll be reporting the medical department's oversight, I take it."

"Already did," said Abbey. "You wouldn't believe what kind of bullshit story they tried to sell me in their defence."

"Surprise me."

"They expect me to believe they mistook those detonators for pace-makers."

"You're kidding. Pace-makers in their _stomachs?_"

"That's what I said," Abbey took a sip of her own coffee, then she grimaced. It was cold. "They reckon I never saw that scene with the 'phone-bomb in _'The Dark Knight'_. Those machines were designed to monitor their vital signs. They were done for the moment the soothsayer was detected in their bloodstreams." She put her head in her hands and mumbled, "Christ above! This is such shit, and it'll all be on _my_ record!"

"It's probably not a consolation, but they were done for when they failed to abduct the pilot," said Therese. She batted at Abbey's ponytail like a cat swatting a curtain tassel. "There was nothing you could've done. I'll vouch for you." Bat. Bat.

"Keep that up and you'll be wearing this sludge all over your head, Doctor Peroxide."

"So sensitive," cooed the blonde scientist teasingly. "Did you get anything out of them before they went pop?"

"One word," Abbey murmured, dropping her voice low enough that only Therese could hear her. "_Axon_. Mean anything to you?"

"Not as such," she replied, "in anatomy axons are protoplasmic components of neurons, their function's to conduct the brain's electrical impulses away from that neuron's perikaryon. Saying that, however, I sincerely doubt this was the context your man meant when he said it. I'll try to do some digging, see what I can come up with, but no promises."

"Appreciated," Abbey grunted, nodding.

"In the meantime, Abs," said Therese, "I've got something you might find interesting, too."

Abbey conceded and went with her. She was not looking forward to launching the investigation. She had slept on the low sofa in her office, combined with being unable to get the image of the enemy agents inflating before the moment of combustion out of her mind, had ensured her fitful, restless slumber. She saw it all just as clearly as when it happened. Their eyes bulging out of their sockets, their skin getting tight and transparent and then breaking up in the heat of the mini-explosives. Truth be told, the process took approximately two seconds from start to finish, but her mind had been working in photographic mode, imprinting every gruesome second on the backs of her eyelids. They had kept her from keeping anything substantial down, she had to settle for a cafeteria toastie and the murky coffee as a substitute for a proper breakfast. She rose from her seat, and her mobile 'phone dropped from her jacket pocket onto the table. The top flipped open. One voicemail message from last night.

"_Abbey. It's Michael. I wanted to let you know I'm okay. I'm with Keagan and Sugden. We went to see his sister in hospital, then it started raining hard again. Sugden's place was closer so we're spending the night there. Sorry to worry you. If you come home tonight and need something to eat I think we still have emergency pizza…"_

She switched it off, immediately feeling even worse. All that fuss surrounding his accident, and there she was so worked up about the consequential sequence of events she all but forgot to make sure he was all right. Pen-Pen too, but she knew that her pet penguin would be fine, he was oddly independent for a big flightless bird. The boy, though, the fragile boy…

"What's keeping you?" Therese asked from the doorway.

"Coming!" Abbey stuffed the 'phone into her pocket and chased after her. If she had known Michael Prester Silence was having a whale of a time with his new friends, his brothers-in-battle as some subconscious part of their collective minds considered them, she might not have felt so tense.

The pair took a lift to Therese's office. There were two such rooms that served this purpose, and only if she wasn't working on the command centre's second tier. This one was not watched as closely as its counterpart, so it was also the room Therese preferred to spend her breaks in solitude. There was a window taking up the back wall that overlooked Pyramid Pond, and the statue of Thoth-Hermes stood in profile to it. The scientist sat on one side of the glass desk and removed a C.D. from the pocket of her coat, which she slipped into her laptop's drive.

"These images were taken from my analysis of the remains that were salvaged from the Fifth Angel," she explained. Abbey was standing beside her, and leaned in for a closer look. She had no idea what the colourful squares and lines all meant but in her tired state made a decent try at feigning comprehension.

To Therese it was easier to see through than thin air. "These are D.N.A. patterns," she explained for the sake of the chief of operations' understanding, "we didn't find all the answers we would have liked, but we've ascertained that the Angels, or at the very least this last one, are fashioned from some type of matter containing properties of both particles and waves."

"So it's like…a living light?" asked Abbey, screwing her nose up. Therese nodded her head. "How can that be?"

"I suspect that's what allows the Angel its malleability," the scientist told her. "I believe we've still got a great deal to learn regarding the exact nature of the A.T. Fields, so please keep in mind that what I'm about to say is nothing more than a hypothesis. No two Angels of those we have on record bear even the smallest resemblance to one another, but the small pattern samples we were able to compare with this clearly match up. In fact, look at this."

She tapped a key, and a greenish filter fell over the monitor, then returned to the same pattern as before, except the label in the toolbar changed from, _'ANGEL 5 SHAMSIEL,'_ to, _'DONATED SAMPLE – DR. STERNSINGER, T.'_

"What am I looking at?" Abbey narrowed her eyes. "Why's your name on this?"

"Everyone in NERV has samples on file," Therese shrugged, "it could've been anyone's. The point is the similarities between these two inherent wave-form patterns. Though the constituent elements differ vastly, the arrangement and coordinates of the signals show a 99.89 per cent match to those of humans. I like to think this is evidence of the Angels' forms as a product of their unique A.T. Fields, and that there's a connection to the eyewitness account you gave of the events right before Michael was run down by that car, but…"

"But you don't have enough data," Abbey finished for her.

"Far from it," Therese sighed, "I may as well be poking stones to make fire, so this file's been classified a 601. Unable to analyse. That's what I love about this world of ours, Abs."

"_Mm?"_

"Every time we think we've cracked the fundamental truths, we find twice as many more still waiting for us. The universe is truly a boundless ocean, full of mysteries…"

XXX

"Ready for fuckest upest!"

"Language!" someone called from downstairs.

"Sorry, Dad!" Sugden hollered in response and reached over to pull shut the trapdoor separating his attic bedroom from the first floor landing. There were three levels to the house, if one included this lair as separate. Like most typical houses, the facilities and bedrooms were on the first floor, and down on the ground floor were a smallish kitchen barely big enough for one person to work in and a moderate living room. However, unlike your typical house, those rooms served as a barrier of normalcy to hide the workshop that took up the back end of the house and extended into the basement. A workshop where two men worked on concept and text models for the weapons division of a certain defence agency. Michael was amazed to learn his new compatriot had been born into a NERV family. The father was a Doctor John Sugden, whose own father and mentor was one Albert Sugden, previously a department chief before he retired, only to return to the workbench in a consulting capacity. John did not quite fill his predecessor's boots, but it would be lying to say he did not earn the respect of his colleagues. It also transpired that Keagan Albright's old man worked in accounts, which Michael once heard was a public slang term for Section Two agents. He did take note that both of them seemed to lack mothers in their lives, but thought better of it than to pry.

"You've got a lot of books here, Sugs," he said, running his fingertips across the spines of the tomes on the wall-mounted shelf. It was actually the second of four, stretching towards the attic's only window. There were writers he recognised and didn't; Stephen King, Tolkein, Garth Nix, and somebody called Adrian Tchaikovsky, among others.

"Yeah, well, I like to read," Sugden shrugged, not looking up from the game he was playing against Keagan, who was mumbling to himself. "You know surprise attacks don't work if you plan them out loud, Keag." The Irish boy sealed his lips without a remark.

"Did you ever fancy being a writer?" Michael asked.

"S'my dream," said Sugden. "Go on, take the piss."

Michael blinked at him. "Nah, man," he said, "I think it's a good thing to know what you want to do. I still haven't got a clue and-"

"Yeah, we know that," said Sugden. Keagan sniggered.

Michael huffed and carried on, "As I was saying, I don't have any idea what I want to do, and look where I am now."

"Piloting a giant robot and fighting to save the whole world?" Keagan chimed in. "Sounds like a sweet deal to me, mate."

"No offence but that sounds a bit bollocks," rasped Sugden, "I mean, the _whole_ world? Who wants all that sort of pressure?"

"No!" Michael frowned. "Being shit scared every time I hear my 'phone go off because it might mean I'm about to wind up stuck in front of the next bloody space monster that wants to pummel my organs out or lay eggs in my brain or…whatever it is Angels do to people!"

"Rhea said you weren't on active duty yet," said Sugden, "you got nothing to worry about for a while."

"You must like it at least a little bit," said Keagan, "or you wouldn't go back and do it again. You're the only one who can. So like, they need you more than you need them, maybe?"

"Dunno," Michael sighed and let his arm drop down by his side. "I don't really want to think about that right now…" His voice trailed off, his eyes bulged in their sockets and his lips did a motion best described as, _'goldfishing.'_

"Did you wanna borrow that one?" Sugden asked. He was looking over his shoulder at him. One eyebrow was raised, hidden just out of sight by the peak of his cap.

"Can I?" His voice barely registered above a stunned squeak.

"Yeah, just be careful with it."

Michael snatched the book and hugged it to his chest. It was a treasure to be cherished, at least to him. "Oh, my God I can't tell you how much love I'm feeling right now!"

"Here, pack it in," Sugden wagged a finger at him then plopped a hand on Keagan's head of blonde frizz, "I already get enough of that off this'un, don't I?" Keagan swatted the hand off him and grumbled about his concentration.

There was a low table pushed against one wall, so Michael put the book down on it so he wouldn't forget. On top of the table was a model of a valley with sloping hills around a river that could only be crossed by three wooden bridges. Fighting across the valley were little plastic fantasy creatures, hand-painted and intricately sculpted, with decorative catapults and other weird and brilliant tools. Above the scene, more figures stood on two parallel shelves. Glossy books, supplementary texts and plastic boxes of dice and measuring tapes were at the far ends so as to provide walls for the collection. He never would have thought of the brawny boy, with his short hair, square jaw and slouching posture, for such a colourfully imaginative person.

Michael's initial impressions of Sugden as a thug or a bully, and Keagan as his fearful, ever-present henchman were further off than he could ever have imagined. The act of misjudgement made him feel guilty. His train of thought was derailed by a voice calling him over to play a few rounds using their third controller. He smiled and nodded. That was how the three boys spent the evening and continued late into the night, playing games and talking actively, laughing, cursing each other over who was stealing headshots from whom, strategising, betraying, really in general having a good time and almost never leaving the comfort of their bean-bag seats.

The next day, a little before lunchtime, Maya Wadia showed up on the doorstep instead of going home like her boss instructed her. She was still shaky but managing to keep it together. She shared a quick yet warm greeting with Michael, to which Keagan and Sugden both reacted with varying levels of envy, then she got to business. Albert insisted it be conducted in the safer confines of the basement, to which she replied, "Actually, it concerns all three of those boys. I think they should be able to hear this for themselves."

"Very well," said Albert with a huff, "but we'll talk down in the workshop anyway. I know for a fact it's untapped."

"Do you take sugar, Miss Wadia?" John asked her, as he was on his way to the kitchen already.

Approximately at the same time as Therese ended her talk with Abbey, Maya delivered her proposal to the five males gathered around her.

"Us? Pilots?" Keagan sounded like all his fondest wishes were unfolding before him.

"Well, let's not be hasty," said the junior technician, "when the two of you got into the entry plug during the battle with the Fifth Angel, we registered very high synch scores. In all honesty that could mean anything. It could have been a unique event propagated by…" She paused. She didn't want to think in the future that she had raised their hopes, but there was too much energy behind that stunt with the progressive knife for her to ignore. Its ultrasonic vibration was not activated but it still carved a deep gash in the rock hard material.

"What I meant to say," she picked up, "is that if no-one minds _and_ if the head of my department's okay with it, I'd like Tony and Keagan to undergo evaluation tests to see if they have the potential to synchronise with an Evangelion. That's not to say they definitely will, but you know every bit of new data we're able to log could be important later on."

"I can't speak for Keagan's father," said John, "but I don't see any reason not to allow a test at least. Just to check."

"Where _is_ Tony?" asked Granddad Albert. They all looked around the room, but there was no sign of the boy. Neither Michael or Keagan, who were not as entranced in the talking until she got to the exciting part, could recall him getting up or leaving, and when they inspected the rest of the workshop, they found it completely undisturbed.

"We're very sorry about that, Miss Wadia," John apologised for the fifth time as he escorted Maya to the door, "I can't think why my son would just…"

"It's fine, really," Maya insisted, "I'll be sure to keep you posted if there are any developments. Goodbye." She made good her escape, not being used to such fawning humility. Usually it was her kissing up to other people. Tony Sugden reappeared downstairs, and shortly after that, the boys found him hiding in his bedroom, fixated on his computer game once again. They said no more about the visit for the rest of that day. At two o'clock in the afternoon, Michael was driven home, the entire ride was spent in quiet, being unable to work out if he would be happy to have more kids on the team with whom he'd make a better connection, or irritated by the possibility of forcing more innocent people to meet the horror of the Angels. He had first-hand experience of how terrifying they were, and in all of humanity only one other could comprehend what it was like.

XXX

[Damien Rice – _"Cold Water"_ – O, 2002]

Six o'clock. Rhea always started her bath at six o'clock and finished drying herself at thirty-five minutes past. Not many sensations were known to her, but there was always a lightness in her skin when she washed off the last remnants of the day's filth. If it transpired that she was subjected to harmonics or synchronisation tests in the laboratory, she would scrub away any traces of L.C.L. that escaped the showers at headquarters, which were always too hot or on the wrong pressure. If the way she understood it through what she had heard from other people served as any kind of indication, the feeling was relief. Yes, the word sounded correct. The female staff used the term when they showered, talking to each other across the stalls. Always Rhea managed to go unnoticed by them. It meant she didn't have to be engaged in talks for which she had no contribution, like how the schedules were so erratic, how the higher techs barely even got to sleep at home, or personal opinions regarding work colleagues. She imagined that others might have these concepts but not her, for she had nothing to measure them against. Rhea was born for Oliver Haddo's work. Lahash was all she had.

She stood in the middle of the bathroom. One towel was wrapped around her from her waist to just below her knees. She used a smaller one to dry her hair. She paused, hearing a noise. Her caretaker came at ten-past-seven every morning and a quarter-to-nine every night, when she went to bed. The front door fell open with a creak, for she never bothered to lock it. Two feet rustled the waist-high stacks of newspapers and junk mail that rested against the wall of the narrow little entranceway. Rhea never considered disposing of all the rubbish stuffed into her letterbox. She only ever tidied it away when the mess grew too big and inconvenienced her caretaker. She got very few lessons from him. One was that removing hazards could be practical as much as it constituted a cosmetic preference. Occasionally she practised it, but never made it a priority. Rhea's grip on the idea of acts of individual importance was slim at best.

She heard a voice call her name and the footsteps moved across to the other side of her accommodation. Now her interest rose, if only a smidgen. She draped the smaller towel over her neck and shoulders so the ends of it covered her chest, and brushed a few stray white strands out of her eyes. She walked out into the bed-sit. There was a figure poised by her dressing table, holding a green leather case. He popped the latch and took out the artefact inside.

"Can't be hers," he mumbled.

She was prompted into action.

"Why are you here, Pilot Silence?"

The Third Child yelped and spun on his heels to face her. Her eyes widened. He was wearing the artefact on his face, a pair of mirrored glasses. The frame was bent along the nose, an arm was twisted so it poked outwards and both lenses were cracked. They had no place on him. She stormed towards him, and at the same time he tried to pass them to her. Too quick. Their arms smacked into each other and sent the glasses flying. She threw out her hand to catch them with a gasp and the shift in weight knocked the towel on her shoulders loose. The glasses slipped through her slender fingers, bounced off the wall and landed in two pieces, one in the bin and the other on the floor. She froze, the precise moment of fracturing burnt itself into the backs of her eyelids.

"I-I'm sorry," Michael stumbled over his own words, "I-I came to…the door…it w-was open…!"

She lifted the broken pieces of Oliver Haddo's old spectacles. The lenses were no more damaged than before, but the way twist in the metal's shape meant it was really just a matter of time before this happened. She looked at her reflection, warped and cracked but still recognisable in the shadowed glass. Movement behind her, then a warm dampness as her towel was replaced.

"I'm really sorry, Rhea," Michael said behind her, his voice quiet and sincere, "Doctor Sternsinger came to our flat. She said she forgot to give you your new card."

He slid to stand in front of her. She didn't react.

"I can fix those," he said, gently touching one of the pieces. She looked up at him. "If you want them fixed," he added. "Oh. Here." He fumbled in his zip-up hoodie's inside pocket and got out the plastic I.D. card. "I'll just…" He put the card on the dressing table and looked away. His face was literally glowing with embarrassment. "I'm sorry," he said again.

Rhea said nothing. She put the glasses back in their case and shut that in a table drawer. She next went to her wardrobe and retrieved a set of powder blue pyjamas.

"I normally dress here, Pilot Silence," she said, "do you mind that, or should I go into the bathroom?"

Michael made an unintelligible noise that sounded like, _"Murm-muh?"_ He cleared his throat, "Don't worry about it. I…I'll see myself out. Didn't mean to impose."

Signs of modesty violated. She excused herself to the bathroom and changed. When she came back, he was gone. The drawer hung open, and the glasses were on the tabletop, held together by a plaster wrapped around the nose. The pieces still moved if she lifted it up by one of the mangled arms, which had been gently manoeuvred into a position close enough to their intended that wearing them would only cause mild discomfort. They were fixed in a clumsy, unprofessional manner, but fixed nonetheless. She asked herself if it would be excessive to thank Pilot Silence again. Her caretaker and her teacher, neither of them bothered to educate her in social graces aside from the old idiom to be seen and rarely heard. The next time she saw Commander Haddo, Rhea would ask him for more information.

[Unkle – _"Lonely Souls"_ – Psyence Fiction, 1998]

In the time between him entering the neglected little flat and now, making his way down the metal stairs to the pavement, the Autumn evening had gone to night. Michael pulled up the zip on his hoodie, but it offered scant warmth against the chill. Was it really the physical cold making him tremble, or the idea of Rhea living in that insecure little box that anybody who could break into if they so wished? Part of him wanted to stay guard but the rest of him was fearful of images of being held at the wrong end of a Stanley knife. He stopped on the midway step to consider if it was a day to consider what he felt to be right against what he knew was common sense. In the end, he decided to be stupid. He swallowed his pride, thanked the taxi driver waiting for him in the car-park, said he didn't need him any more, then asked if there were any shops where he could buy a cheap sleeping bag. The driver pointed him in the direction of a _Millets_ outlet not five minutes away, if he went straight up the road and took the second left past the primary school.

Rhea sat on her bed, brushing her hair, illuminated by pearly moonlight and the amber flames of streetlamps. The spectacles rested in the crevice of her lap. She contemplated them while she brushed. She did not carry them around with her, it was a comfort enough to just know where they were. They were stable, an anchor. Rather than hide them as she usually did, she shut the case and put it down on the low cabinet tucked away in the corner, between the wall and the edge of her mattress, before returning to the task of detangling her hair.

She detected Michael's now familiar aura outside her door and waited for him to come inside, no doubt with something else he needed to tell her.

Ten minutes later, she was still waiting.

Thirty minutes later, they were both asleep.

Tony Sugden played with his fantasy figures, but couldn't get into the mood for a full-blown session. He put the orc-slayers back on their shelf and pulled a book from his collection. The gap left by the one he leant out was weird, like a hole in the wall itself. He said goodnight to his granddad and his father, then to his elder younger sister, Maria, and stood in front of the window as he sent the same wish to the youngest, Jodi, as if his thoughts would transmit over the distance. Somehow, he felt her respond. He went to bed wondering if his decision to brush off that woman's idea was too hasty. He didn't meditate on it for long.

Unlike his best friend, Keagan Albright had nobody he urgently needed to defend. Surrounded by technical manuals and gubbins, a lot of which served no greater role than to be components of other gubbins, he watched some footage from the battle against the Angel on his _MacBook_, and dreamed of commanding an EVA all his own. His interests set him apart from his peers, but if he could pilot, it'd be one kind of acceptance.

Maya Wadia was in the booth at her friends' favourite bar. She was dolled up, pretending to listen to the activity all around her, but she couldn't focus. Not properly. Every time she cast her eyes to the drink in her glass, she saw the window of the observation room, slick with human slime. She strained to join the talking, but the only words she could offer were vague and noncommittal, dashing to dust her attempts to drive the horror from her heart. She would wake up the morning after in the bed of a man she was introduced to, who was too inebriated to take his pants off and distract her even in a carnal fashion. Maya would lament that her weak tolerance for gore had effectively killed her sex life, which if not all that consistent at least used to be satisfying.

Therese Sternsinger spent the lonely hours in her office deep within NERV headquarters, content to work on her analyses with nothing to distract her. Like her departed mother, Therese was married to her work. Bars of letters and numbers, meaningless to the uninitiated but plain to her, who had designed most of their meanings during her work to upgrade the computer systems that maintained the agency, reflected off her glasses. Therese was well in her element now, able to connect with methodical, cool machines as if she were one of them. She was not inhuman, she could socialise, in fact a good pub crawl was as appealing to her as it was to anybody, but here there was no abnormality she could not explore and understand. She almost didn't notice when Professor Fordyce paused in front of her door to wish her a good evening, saying that he would see her tomorrow, and to not wear herself out. She returned the acknowledgement before delving back into her cybernetic dominion; the pocket reality that stood testament to how much she was needed.

Oliver Haddo ate alone at his private residence, like always.

Abbey Creed sat up with Pen-Pen, listening to the sound of the last few drops of beer sloshing in their tin. She decided she didn't want any more and upended it into the penguin's gaping beak. She missed the presence of another voice in the flat, to break up the dead air and make her home a refuge from the wave of bureaucratic bullshit that threatened to engulf her. It was not that she didn't want to find the bastards responsible for trying to off her charge, far from it! She merely wished there was a way to find out that wasn't choked with all this rubbish about proper channels. Document A-1, G-6 and U-2 had turned to a haze of black blobs on paper, which she took as a sure sign to put the wretched papers away until morning and slob out in just her lingerie. When it was late, and Michael still hadn't sent her another text, she got up, pulled on her clothes, and sought out her car keys.

XXX

The stars were brilliant through the hotel windows, teardrops of alabaster against their inky canvas, dotted around scarlet smears born from Second Impact. The occupant stood with pride on the balcony, leaning across the ornate railing with a hand wrapped around the bar and the other hovering over glittering blue eyes. The night winds played through perfect blonde hair.

The eyes gazed out over a kingdom which was theirs to rule and the sleeping people below, who would be guarded, and who would worship in kind.

The Second Child grinned up at those stars, raised a hand, the fingers clenched as if to grasp the heavens. A chuckle escaped pink, flawless Aryan lips. _Onward to glory. Onward to triumph. Prepare yourselves, people of the planet Earth._

[Frank Sinatra – _"Fly Me to the Moon"_ – It Might as Well Be Swing, 1964]

**CLOSING STATEMENT:**

Sorry that the last couple of chapters have been shorter than normal, and more than a little fluffy. I'll be pushing things forward with the next one. Hope all my readers, if they don't just exist in my head, had a great Christmas. Have a happy New Year, too!


	7. High Seas Adventure P1

**Chapter 7  
><strong>"**High Seas Adventure, Part One"**

[E.S. Posthumous – _"Ashielf Pi"_ – Cartographer, 2008]

"A potential Fourth Child, already?"

"One of them, anyway. Doubt is just side-stepping the issue. I will be leaving their induction and training in the operations division's hands. Until the completion of Unit 03, neither boy is my personal affair."

"Forgive me for stating this, but it has been my observation that only Rhea has received that dubious privilege above even your own godson."

Oliver Haddo turned his eyes up towards the older man, smiling thinly, and exhaled in his face. "The Third Child's powers are breaking out, just as we hoped, though at this point anything he does is purely instinctual. I doubt he really knows what is happening to him, which means nobody else will either, _eh?_"

Fordyce was thankful for his anti-pollution scarf, even if it did make him resemble an aging Romford skanger. The smoke from the hookah was thick, acrid, and the elderly vice director had to blink away tears. The aromatic mists curled and discoloured the light from the glass channels in the floor like some weird filter. Anybody who intruded upon his meeting with Haddo would be met by a most psychedelic image, and he realised it, to his chagrin. He stood dressed in his trim, burgundy uniform, right beside NERV's master, who reclined in his chair in a less than gentlemanly manner. Were he unused to this behaviour, another person walking in would have quite given him cause to die from embarrassment.

"Earlier than we anticipated," said Haddo, every bit the Lewis Carroll caterpillar. "I viewed all the potential scenarios. In none of them was the Fourth anything more consequential than a footnote, a casualty to help further the deconstruction of our messianic sacrifice's ego. In several you and I were Japanese, yet my beard was alike to Abraham Lincoln's. Can you imagine?"

"I'm sorry?" Fordyce disliked his former student's lapses into the hyper-metaphorical. Another cloud of smoke puffed out, and he wrinkled his nose in response.

"Nothing that concerns us now, I assure you," said Haddo, "in the meantime, teacher, the Second Child?"

"On the way with Unit 02," said Fordyce, "under the authority of Admiral Keiner's fleet."

"_Über den Regenbogen,"_ Haddo mused.

"A fine vessel," said Fordyce.

"A relic," Haddo spat, "a sign of the previous epoch. In this æon of monsters and giants, it is a floating museum piece. _Oh._ Captain Creed will be delivering the EVA's emergency umbilical power cable _via_ helicopter."

"In case an Angel attacks it in transit?"

"_When_ an Angel attacks," Haddo corrected, "I am certain of it, because there is a greater prize onboard. The final length of any journey always faces the greatest risk of obstacles."

"The committee are completely in the dark, I take it," Fordyce said warily. "They're very influential people, and they've all sunk plenty of money, time and manpower into this scheme. They won't sit quietly by once they find out you have been treating their schedule outline like your own personal playground."

"Are you going to tell them?" Haddo asked. The tone was jovial but Fordyce could recognise the menacing intent behind it. The man behind the desk had done terrible things to people who got in his way, and with Leah gone, there was nothing left to save him from her husband's wrath.

He played it safe. "I would never betray your trust, Oliver. I have been by your side since the beginning."

"Then like I always told you in school," Haddo chuckled lowly, "be cool, teach, and leave handling the old frauds to me. Why don't you forward my orders to the good captain in operations while I go over our latest military intel?"

[The Rolling Stones – _"Sympathy for the Devil"_ – Beggars Banquet, 1968]

Fordyce was tempted to protest, being privy to most of Haddo's little side projects, but the master of NERV was already quite away with the fairies. Behind his glasses, glazed eyes watched a smoke snake coil and arch within the artificial glow of the lair. Fordyce sniffed and took his exit, tearing his scarf off the very second he was in the cool vacuum of the hallway. Even out here, though, he could feel Haddo's unnatural essence, if he were to entertain such cabbalistic claptrap, clawing under his skin. _You mustn't let his threats get to you,_ the esteemed professor scolded himself, _it's just a sick game he's playing._

"When Adam delved and Eve span," Haddo sang quietly to himself as a big smile, filled by two rows of shark-like teeth, opened his face from ear to ear, "who was when a gentleman?"

XXX

Plunging the laboratory into darkness and inciting blind panic so he could pinch the material and stuff it in a hyper-chilled containment case was a trifle, a tad more challenging than the time he lifted a certain pink diamond during the years when he dabbled in recreational larceny (he'd made a tasty sum off the French, you should know). Procuring what was supposed to be a black project aeroplane to escape before the place went up in flames was easy too, although he had to admit there were some narrow squeaks, especially since he was on the menu for those twelve hungry demons whose stasis sleeps he'd brought to such rude and abrupt ends. Really, if those scientists didn't want to end up lunch, they shouldn't have tried to abuse the poor, infernal beasts in the first place, right? He could have been worried about what they would do next, but he knew for a fact that being brought to turn ahead of schedule meant they would decay and fall apart before they even left the manor grounds.

Altogether his European trek was close to mind-numbing in its smoothness. Not the cinematically comical summer misadventure he'd prayed for.

The hard part, as weeks passed until everything was ready for him to hand over the item and complete the mission, was to do nothing. To sit back, keep it real, pretend to get on with the daily grind that his role as an internal affairs investigator at NERV's German branch afforded him, and perhaps the hardest of all, to not peak at the goods. Tyso Boswell called himself a natural born unfastener. Zips, buttons, clasps, every locked door was as inviting to him as a night in with the boss' wife, so this may as well be the bloody Ark of the Covenant! He had to keep the thing close for its own good, so he found a metal panel in the floor of his onboard quarters that he could jemmy up, and stowed the bulky, black box there. It fit there snugly beside some coolant pipes, serving some extra insurance though he thought the sealed interior would maintain its temperature well enough on its own. His father, and the men who honed him into what he was today, believed wholeheartedly in the, _"belt and braces,"_ philosophy. It worked for him so far in life, so why stop now? Before his excursion, he also acted as the legal guardian of the Second Child, and had since been reinstated as such afterwards. The duties that entailed helped keep his mind occupied for small periods. The kid turned out to be seriously high maintenance, swinging from being fiercely independent to immovably lethargic to a degree that Tyso was convinced to be evidence of bipolar disorder. Talk was rare, and usually used to bark admonishments at crewmembers for scuffing EVA Unit 02. So far as Tyso could tell, his charge had all the qualities to become a feared and respected military commander, or a cadaver in waiting.

He was in his quarters, reading a jazz magazine and thumbing a demon's fang he'd taken as a souvenir, when he detected raised voices on the deck above his head. _My break's over,_ he groaned inwardly, and went about dressing himself. He didn't bother to shave, but he did put on sunglasses to obscure the fact he was up all night. He was a creature of darkness at heart, shunning the influence of day-lit waking hours whenever possible. Since boarding _Über den Regenbogen_ it was not, and so his biological clock had suffered. He needed another fight to break up like a hole in the head.

Admiral Keiner liked tough bastards in his fleet, and Tyso had to learn to become a good bodyguard quickly if he didn't fancy explaining why NERV's Second Child was found in the belly of a shark. Thank God he'd inherited his teacher's gift of the gab.

XXX

The last minutes of conflict between EVA Unit 01 and the Fifth Angel replayed on one of the laptop monitors. It froze over an image of Behemoth's purple face, and numbers scrolled rapidly up the right-hand side of the display. The view shifted to the progressive knife in its hand. The unit had drawn it out at an angle that caused the tip of the blade to snap clean off, plus the ultrasonic vibration was not even activated, so how it had pierced the monster's core so thoroughly was anybody's guess.

It was true the damage was limited enough that said core could be properly studied, the knife had impaled it straight through one side and out the other with startlingly little resistance.

Therese believed that the Angels' single most vital organ had to be carried on the outside for a reason other than some mere mistake of evolution. Life wasn't like a computer game with a big, red target painted on the enemy's backside, and with the specimen under scrutiny, they might be able to find the reason a species intent on invasion would undertake such an ungainly risk to their survival. It was well documented in the archives that the berserk Behemoth had dealt the Fourth Angel a hell of a hiding (_with one of its own ribs_, it was stressed) but still barely managed to dent its outer crust. What made this case so different?

It was decided in the early stages of the project that putting more than one crewmember inside an EVA was impractical because full mobility would require all parties involved to maintain a unity of purpose from start to finish. Given the likelihood of arguments and in-fighting, it would make the machines unwieldy in combat, even more-so if multiple units were dispatched. No, operating an Evangelion had to remain in the hands of a single pilot. Shared synch ratios were deemed unworthy of study in an official capacity, but nothing in the rules said the event had to be ruled out completely. If it gave NERV the opportunity to test the possibilities, plumb as much of the innate majesty of the mysterious A.T. Fields as was humanly doable, and if they didn't do it during a sortie or on NERV-issue stationary, who had reason to complain?

Therese magnified the image on the monitor. Yes, she could see it now. There was a blur of colour, travelling down Behemoth's arms, into her hands and then up through the knife's blade. It pushed the crack in the core open, parted the jelly enveloping the heart. During a span of time so rapid she had to slow down the footage to watch it frame-by-frame, the colour formed into a ball and launched off the jagged tip of the blade, weakening the material half a split-second before Unit 01 drove it home. Whatever the blazes that was, it was instinctual, because none of the three boys involved had any recollection of it. She had to be honest with herself, she doubted they saw it as anything more than putting a little extra _oomph_ behind the attack. This made for compelling, if irritatingly illogical study.

Maya's voice derailed her. _Ah_, young Maya, her loyal assistant who had suggested putting the two boys through the evaluations in the first place. "Michael's synch level has increased," she told her mentor. "He's fluctuating a great deal, but he hasn't fallen any lower than the upper-50s since we began the test."

"What's his highest reading?"

"So far he's capped at 76.4 per cent, but he hasn't been able to hold it longer than a few seconds."

"We'll have to set up another test to investigate it," Therese sighed and took a sip from her coffee cup, "he might have some hitherto undetected contamination. What about the other two?"

The technician at the console on Maya's left answered her. His name was Joe Glass, and despite being her elder by only a few months, he would have looked utterly inconspicuous as a 1990s adolescent. He had boxy, black glasses, a silver lip ring and black hair with a shady fringe, but since he habitually forgot to do his eyebrows, it only took a brief glance to tell it was dyed. "They both qualify at the lowest recommended level under standard virtual plug depth. Albright's highest so far scrapes by at 31 per cent, but his brain activity's very erratic. He's too excited, even after sitting in there for over an hour."

Therese frowned, put her beverage down, and picked up a nearby microphone. "Mister Albright," she spoke into it, "please, try to focus your thoughts. The more distracted you allow yourself to become, the less precisely we can decide your suitability."

"S-sorry, ma'am!" Keagan stammered. "What should I focus on?"

Therese blinked. How the hell was she supposed to know?

"How about, why you _want_ to pilot the Evangelion?" Maya chimed in gently. "Forget about all the other little things and focus on that one real reason. You'll know it when you find it."

Keagan went quiet. On the display, he ceased fidgeting, closed his eyes, inhaled the L.C.L. deeply. He proved to have a tough gag reflex, if that was any consolation. His friend had nearly thrown up in the plug, and Michael was still not acclimatised, making ill faces until his lungs filled up properly.

"He's rising gradually," said Joe, "meantime, Sugden's holding at 37.4 per cent." Therese nodded her approval. It was still a relatively low score, but more acceptable for somebody without any experience. Thirty-one uncomfortably skirted the limits of acceptability, and Therese was dreading the idea of telling an undisciplined and frustrated teenager that he could not have a go with the big shiny toy robot. Someone with enough energy as Keagan Albright might be capable of just about anything.

Maya asked, "Is this enough to undergo provisional training?"

"From my standpoint, yes," said Therese, "but ultimately, that isn't my call. I want you to vary the plug depths, observe how they respond to the internal pressure shifts."

"How deep?" Joe asked.

"Stay above the borderline," said Therese. "Too much stress at this stage would do more harm than good…but lower Michael down another twelve degrees. I think he can take it."

This testing and re-testing, the jargon of which meant nothing to the subjects and even less to an uninitiated audience, went on for another two hours. Therese and her team were nothing if not thorough. Disgorging L.C.L. from the system was unpleasant to anybody who had to do it. Michael had been taught breathing exercises to make it more tolerable, but his friends spent the next few minutes after emerging from the plugs throwing up and sneezing into a bin they were kindly provided with. Their plug suits, which were slate grey and featureless, were taken away to be washed, and they got in the showers. Keagan sang, loudly and off-key, or chatted to Michael in the adjacent stall. That was the day the Third Child earned a new, playful nickname.

"_Sarge,"_ wouldn't do because it entailed holding a rank, which he didn't because he wasn't old enough to become an officer in any armed force, as cheeky and hypocritical as that may sound.

"_The Boss,"_ sounded awkward and gang-like.

Henceforth, Keagan bestowed upon Michael Silence the honour of being called, _"The Guv."_ It wasn't the sort of thing the young pilot was used to, but he imagined it was better than a few of the other names he'd been called at school behind his back and to his face alike.

"So when d'you think we'll hear back from Doctor Sternsinger?" Keagan asked.

"I can't tell you," Michael shrugged, then applied conditioner to his curls, "I've got absolutely no clue. Not too long?"

"Well, that's something," said Keagan. "I can't wait. I know, I just know I'll make you all proud. When the three of us-"

"Don't forget Rhea," said Michael.

"When the _four_ of us," Keagan corrected himself, "come running to the fight, the Angels won't know what hit them."

"Yeah, well, don't overdo it," Michael warned him, "it's not a cartoon, Japanese or otherwise, and it's not a fair fight. The Angels want us all dead. Not prisoners."

"_Oh_, don't be so miserable!" Keagan scoffed. "The Angels don't scare me. They're food for Evangelions!"

"Do you actually have a sense of self-preservation or did you swap it in for camera parts?" asked Michael, hiding well just how much that last statement made him shudder.

"You should talk!" Keagan shot back. "Who was the one who went nuts when he was supposed to retreat, _hmm?_"

They talked some more, and Sugden kept to himself, not because he didn't want to join in, but because he was too occupied by a different train of thought. He still hadn't forgiven himself for letting Jodi get hurt. The rage he previously projected on Michael was now turned inwards. It made him tense and quick to lose his temper. He went to see her every day after school and on the weekends. She was visibly improving, always greeted him with that rosy-cheeked, gap-toothed grin he loved, but when he saw her legs sealed in casts, it reminded him how useless, how huge a failure he was. He didn't want to be seen by anyone. He winced as the skin of his chest tingled, and then he was gone.

[Placebo – _"Where is my Mind?"_ – Sleeping with Ghosts, 2003]

He stayed that way well after Michael and Keagan deduced that he'd left ahead of them. He was learning better control of his power, he was channelling it more frequently. It was the sixth time he'd done it. The first two he used to escape fighting at home, back when his mum still lived with them. She was a saint when it came to him and the girls, but her love for his father had, if not waned, been certainly challenged. The man was very unadventurous. She liked Granddad Albert, but she accused John of being a slave to the old fossil's commands, even following him into the business of weapons design because he lacked any ambitions to call his own. He knew his father hadn't meant to strike her. The arguing just reached the hysterical pitch that could only end in violence. The house had never been the same. The year following was spent watching two human beings crumble as their attempts to reignite their love for each other failed again and again, until, one day, she disappeared.

Useless.

John Sugden was useless when it came to comforting his own son and daughters. He was truly lost without her, allowing his job to swallow him up to the point that he was more an apologising machine than a man. Tony couldn't allow himself to become like that. He _would_ be a pilot. The only other choice was oblivion.

He slapped a hand, fingers splayed, to the wall beside him. He could think creatively when left on his Jacks, but he despised the paths his mind trod in the absence of distractions. Always the days of ruin that sucked the joy in their lives. He pushed it all aside, and focussed on becoming corporeal. Coming back was harder than going. He could see himself even when the rest could not, so he had to create a way to perceive the change on his own. He imagined a bubble encompassing him, silvery, tight to his skin. If the surface tension got thinner, he was closer to solidifying, and when the bubble fizzled or popped, he had done it. It got easier, but not by much. It all boiled down to his power of concentration, his ability to visualise. He used a wall mirror to make sure he was all there, then got dressed in his civilian clothes, a purple-striped T-shirt, royal blue joggers, trainers, and his favourite cap.

He caught up to his would-be team-mates in the car-park, where they were mucking around loudly near Abbey's car. The captain herself was nearby, talking to Maya Wadia, who looked like she had run to catch them before they left, and a suited woman. He recognised the last one's bland, all-black outfit and layer of body armour underneath as the uniform of Section Two's agents.

Maya glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye and sent him an acknowledging nod, which he politely returned before he joined the other boys.

"Here, what do you think they're talking about?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," replied Michael. "Maybe it's not our business to know?"

"For God's sake, don't say that," Sugden groaned and pointed a finger at Keagan. "You'll set him off." Keagan's face screwed up in irritation, and it wasn't long before Michael had to get between the pair of them to prevent one shoving the other into Abbey's car. A lot of repair work was needed to return it to a decent state, and she was still paying off the costs. She made it terrifyingly clear to them all it was to _stay_ undamaged, or else. Michael had no intention of finding out what else meant, but he was pretty sure he had a good idea.

"Take it easy, Bulk and Skull," he fumed once the pair calmed down, "or did you want us to have to _walk_ home?"

"_Oi!_ Trainees!" Abbey sauntered towards them with a big smile plastered across her features. Sugden and Keagan immediately snapped to attention as if in a parade line. Michael let out an exasperated sigh. Maya and the suited woman were gone. He saw the lift at the far end of the level slide shut, and got the mental image of the poor technician having to run behind the agent's regimented stride. Poor Maya.

"Who fancies going on a little trip later in the week?" Abbey asked them. "It'll be just us four. Sun, sea, adventure."

"Is this, like, a holiday, captain?" Keagan scratched the side of his head.

"Not exactly," said Abbey cryptically, "but that doesn't mean it can't be exciting, right?"

Michael already had a bad feeling about this. Sugden fixed his cap so the peak shadowed his eyes, but Michael guessed he must have been as anxious as he was. Keagan was smirking, using two fingers to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Perhaps his brain worked in a way that kept negativity from seeping in and corrupting an otherwise happy person? He could use some of that. Maybe he could stick a tap in Keag's ear and bottle what liquid happiness came out? In his mind it looked like L.C.L.

"You'll have to get your parents' permission, obviously," said Abbey, "but since we're all connected here at NERV, that won't be a problem, I reckon. So, I'll pass on when we can all meet up at our place."

Michael winced. When she called it that, it tended to give off the wrong impression. He was terrible at covering what he felt around her, he realised, which probably encouraged her. "Until then," she finished, "let's get out of here."

XXX

The day of the drop-off came quicker than expected. The Second Child stood on the bridge, hands on hips, watching like a hawk as the Merlin HC3 touched down on _Über den Regenbogen's_ flight deck. To the left, Admiral Fritz Keiner, a big man with a grey walrus moustache and an ornately carved black pipe between his teeth at all times, was seething. Seething because he was made to haul cargo on the finest seagoing vessel-of-war, cargo that was paid for with money better spent on the true armed forces, and seething because the confounded brat it all centred around insisted on swaggering into the cabin like he owned the place.

"If I may, _Herr Admiral_," said the blonde-haired youth next to him, and offered a polite salute, "I'd like to go deck-side to meet our visitors."

"You may," gruffed the admiral, "you can escort them here so I can express my distaste for the venture personally. The mighty _Deutsch Marine_ are not at NERV's beck and call."

"_Wew, I'm juft a child mysewf,"_ the Second Child taunted in a babyish voice, _"but I'w twy to wemember aw dat, Miftah Man."_

Keiner heard his _Vizeadmiral_ chuckle and shot him a glare that was utterly ruthless. It was probably best to remember the man had killed in his country's name, during one of the many grand conflicts that gripped the world pre-Impact, and in the horror since. There were rumours of secret submarine projects, many a story about why he was forced to wear a leather patch over the left side of his face. The Second Child was not intimidated by it, though, knowing that for all his thunder and bluster, NERV and the United Nations had the German naval forces hard by the short and curlies. The Second Child gave the men on the bridge a funny face and a playful wave, then was off to meet destiny.

"Good day, _Herr_ Boswell."

"You too, kidda," Tyso replied as the kid brushed by him. He ruffled the head of gold locks with a rough hand, then walked through the door into the cabin proper.

"_Herr_ Boswell," growled Admiral Keiner, "how many times must I remind you to not simply allow yourself into prohibited zones of my ship? It's humiliating enough that I must give myself up for the sake of NERV's oversized tin soldier, at the same time lowering many fine men to the status of childminders, at least allow me to retain the right to make the rules."

"I'll be out of your hair soon enough, admiral, don't worry," said Tyso pleasantly, "I'll be taking off by jet ahead of the EVA's estimated arrival time. Now Captain Creed's here, she'll be filling her designated role as the pilot's legal guardian."

"Very well," nodded the admiral. "Was there anything else?"

"Just one thing," was the answer, "can I go down to the stores and get myself a coffee? They've run out in the mess. Normally I'd go there myself, but since you made it so clear you prefer to be asked…"

"You don't have to patronise me," huffed the admiral, "go find _Bootsmann_ Flecke. He has all the keys."

"Thanks. _Tatty-bye-bye._"

[Led Zeppelin – _"The Ocean"_ – Houses of the Holy, 1973]

Sugden and Michael sat side-by-side in the open door of their helicopter, watching as Abbey supervised the unloading of the cargo. Well, she hadn't lied about the sun and sea. It was hot today, and there was something about being surrounded by water that reminded the pilot of Unit 01 of the beaches back home in Cardiff. It had been weeks since he moved to London in answer to his godfather's summons, but he still missed it dreadfully. He kicked his feet back and forth a bit, watching as Keag ran happily about the deck with his camcorder. He chattered to two of the sailors quite actively, and they seemed to be quizzing one another on their mechanical knowledge.

"You'd think they'd find that proper annoying," said Sugden.

"I reckon them two must be engineers," Michael replied. "I bet it's nice to have someone else around they can talk to."

"More for him," said Sugden, and took a gulp from his plastic sports bottle, "Keag's my best mate, but I swear he goes on a mile a minute about shit and I don't have a clue what to say."

"So what do you do?"

"Nod my head until he gets too irritating."

"Like Abbey does when she's with Therese."

Sugden went to reply, but when a loud cry of, _"HALLO, FRÄULEIN CREED!"_ carried across the deck, his eyes bulged and his hand went over his open mouth. He realised quickly enough that the cry had come from a little way away, from the figure clad all in crimson coming towards them at a confident and brisk pace.

Abbey adjusted her uniform beret and turned from the men, who got on with their work as if nothing had happened, giving the newcomer a welcoming smile.

"My! You've grown some since I saw you last."

"Well, the gym's done a lot for me," said the newcomer, words affected by a heavy accent that belied their fluency. The boys had gathered close beside Abbey, though Sugden and Keagan were blocking Michael's view and the latter's camcorder was pointed straight ahead, which the newcomer didn't appear to appreciate in the slightest, putting a hand over the lens and jerking the device up and over, so it was aimed upside down in the face of its surprised owner.

"Be nice," Abbey sighed, "boys, let I introduce you all to the pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, the Second Child, Denis Drenth."

Denis flicked a few pale gold strands of hair out of his face, and the boys were certain they could see little cartoon stars flying out. He had an angular, feminine facial structure, big, blue eyes and small gap between his front teeth that made him look cheeky. He offered a manicured hand and asked, "Which of you three is the Englishman who got in Unit 01 and fended off the Fourth Angel?"

"_Um._ It's me, but I'm actually Welsh," Michael piped up. His friends parted like the Red Sea, and he extended his own hand to accept the gesture. Denis closed his fingers into a fist a split-second before he could take it, and bent forwards as if inspecting him.

"Not much to look at, are you?" he said eventually. "Well, we leave the public image to our Evangelions, yes? It is for our skills we are needed. And your…entourage?"

"Pilots-in-training," Keagan chimed in before anyone else got a chance, "and the Guv here didn't just fend off those Angels, he tore them to shreds!"

"The Guv?" Denis looked at Michael, who only looked southwards at his feet in reply. The German boy raised his eyebrows, then shrugged his arms and turned his back on them.

"Let's head in, shall we?" he said, rather than asked, "we're wanted up on the bridge." He marched inside ahead of the rest, and for a brief moment that felt like it stretched on for ages there was not a word amongst them.

"So, he's…" Michael started.

"He's an ass," Sugden finished. "Moment I saw him I could see the word, _'smug,'_ branded on his pasty white forehead."

"Don't be so quick to judge him," said Abbey. "Den's a teensy bit overzealous, but he's capable. Trust me, you'll warm up to him before long."

"Yeah, like a forest fire."

XXX

Beneath the bed of the North Sea, there was an Orphic Egg, and around that egg were the remains of some islands, a few of the many that dotted the waters around Britain like self-contained little wonderlands, each bearing obscure human cultures as odd as they were charming. A great deal had been lost in the chaos but as of 2015, there were still some previously unspotted by mainland censuses. This Orphic Egg had, at one time, been such an island itself, sleeping peacefully, soundlessly. Now it was breaking open, the bleached skin of the thing being born shook and peeled away from four eyes. Its pupils shone severe orange as its ancient computer brain came to life. Its prime function was well in grasp:

_Activation procedure engaged…completed to stage 777-3371…user-interface has not been detected. Attempting to resume previous task…target presence identified and located. System will begin reclamation protocol -1'._

The eyes closed, and when they reopened, they had changed from orange to azure. That was how Certari, Angel of Winter, awoke.


	8. High Seas Adventure P2

**Chapter 8  
><strong>"**High Seas Adventure, Part Two"**

"And to think," said Admiral Keiner, his eye flitting between Abbey's patiently smiling face and the identification document between his hands, "I assumed you were this scout troop's den mother, given what I've heard of your legal position."

"On behalf of my superiors," she replied without even batting an eyelash, "I'd like to express our fondest gratitude for all the help you've given us, Admiral."

"_Oh!_ Please, think nothing of it, _Fräulein_ Creed," snorted the old man, "it's my pleasure to lead an entire fleet in carrying out the duties of the postal service."

Abbey reached into the manila envelope tucked beneath her arm, and retrieved a three-fold document in white, yellow and pink, which she held towards Keiner. "The official handover form for Unit 02," she explained. "If you'll sign and date it, please, NERV will relieve you of all responsibility pertaining to the EVA's care."

"Of course," nodded the admiral, "but I will only sign it once I am satisfied it has been properly delivered. When we've made port at Southampton dock, I'll be glad to see the back of that wretched doll." The scowl squirming under the female captain's skin frankly chuffed him, and he had to suppress a sneer. "I'm sure you understand it's all for the sake of security, as well as integrity. NERV Germany, and the EuroEVA Group entrusted us with its safety, and to prove wrong an act of such faith would be the greatest sin my men, all as strong and incorruptible as the ocean which is our domain, could commit."

"Wonder how many times he's rehearsed that in the mirror," one of the boys murmured under his breath, and his two friends had to chuckle. Denis said nothing, instead retaining his posture, hands crossed behind his back and head tilted slightly up with a confident smile.

"The sea is our jurisdiction," the admiral glared towards the speaker, who yanked the peak of his cap down over his face to hide it, as if his good eye could shoot lightning bolts, "and that means you will follow our rules."

"Understood, sir," Abbey conceded, "so long as you remember in an emergency, NERV's authority supersedes yours, whether we're out on the open sea or not." Her pride swelled when she heard the boys quietly agree that the way she battled sternness with sternness was nothing short of awesome. "If that's all, please excuse me as I'd like to visually confirm our cargo is stored efficiently and that the EVA is still in the condition it left Germany in."

"Believe me, if it was anything less, they would've heard from me first," said Denis, inflating his chest. The admiral huffed and waved her off, and the five people left together.

"Putting children in those things," Keiner murmured in German, "it's not only embarrassing, it's inhumane." He peered through the cabin's easterly windows, which gave him a decent view of the enormous tarpaulin occupying the EuroEVA Group's transport vessel that the _Deutsch Marine_ had been tasked to guard on the voyage. Granted, the water level of the North Sea was affected like most of the planet's bodies, entire tectonic areas thrown miles from their former settlements, and every single map from the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ to the ones pinned onto classroom walls needed to be redrawn, but the excursion was still barely a brief jaunt along the channel. The sense behind this bloated protection did not exist.

"Is it any surprise we've not had any carriers since the _Graf Zeppelin_ when they're burning money on this circus?"

"Would you like your migraine tablets, sir?" the _Vizeadmiral_ questioned helpfully.

"Double my usual dose."

XXX

They travelled to the considerably bigger transport ship using a motorboat. It was an absolute titan, its sheer scale dwarfed even the mighty flagship. It bore no gun batteries, and only a minute amount of radar equipment, and when Keagan caught it on camera he referred to it as, "The biggest bloody target to set sail in the history of ever." He wasn't all that interested in this particular machine itself, just its cargo, and so he kept startlingly to himself during that part of their trip. Michael began to think something might be wrong with him, until Sugden clarified that when it came to their fair-haired compatriot, a boat had to make things go boom for him to pay attention. Keag was content to wander around the deck with his camcorder aimed out towards the other ships, which was fine so long as he kept out of the crew's way. Anxious protocol permeated this vessel, and that was understandable considering that they could easily be at ground zero for an emergency. The cost of their haul was arguably on par with a small country's gross national product.

"Well, I'm satisfied," said Abbey as she emerged from beneath the tarpaulin. She was holding a clipboard and checking boxes on the sheet of paper fixed to it. "I did have my doubts, but these sea dogs really have looked after it."

"Unit 02 is mine," said Denis, affronted. "There is no way in hell I would allow them near her if I thought less."

"I know, I know," Abbey sighed, "but I have to check this out myself. It's all due procedure."

Michael and Sugden were leaning against the safety rail away from the conversation, enjoying the sounds of the wave. They were presently in a designated habitable zone, meaning there was a cleaner, albeit salty smell, being carried on the wind. Neither boy was partial to salt, but it was nice nonetheless.

"Denis is right protective of his EVA," said Sugden, "like, a lot more than you are of Behemoth. Why do you think that is?"

Michael made a noise. He did not know. Keagan joined them.

"Well," he said, "one of the crew I spoke to told me he's been involved in the project for a long time. NERV Germany consider him their golden boy."

"So how come they didn't bring him over when the Fourth Angel appeared?" Michael asked. "Why'd they fetch me?"

"That was a surprise attack," said Keagan.

"Cluster-fuck's more like it," Sugden put in.

"Whatever it was," Keagan huffed, "they would never have been able to mobilise Unit 02 and get it to the danger-zone in time to stop it. Besides, it was still being repaired."

"Repaired?"

"After fighting the _Third Angel_."

The three of them gave a start and turned around. Denis stood before them, his hair and scarlet uniform blazer dancing with the ocean breeze. They hadn't heard his footsteps against the deck, likely because they were indistinguishable amid all the men's falls. It may also have been because he moved like silk, his feet never properly touched the ground, and propelled him forth like he might topple over at any second were it not for his cat-like sense of balance.

"I have the whole affair on D.V.D.," he said, "the battle was in the mountains. The view was lovely. Would you like to see?"

"Maybe another time, Denis," Michael offered meekly.

"Right. There will be plenty of opportunities for home videos. To swap war stories," the Second Child smirked, draping an arm around Michael's shoulders and pulling him close, "there is no recording that can replicate the sheer thrill of going into a battle yourself. We are very privileged people, we pilots. The First, too, though I see she hasn't condescended to be here."

"Rhea's not a people-person," said Michael, squirming free of that unwelcome embrace, "but she has her way. She's nice."

"I'll be judge of that, Third," said Denis, wrapping his hands around the top of the safety rail and lifting his feet up onto the bottommost rung. "I've only heard of your fighting methods through the grapevine. I look forward to seeing how you handle yourself first-hand."

"_Um_. You too," said Michael, wearing a friendly smile.

"I'm bored of all this water," Denis lowered himself back onto the ship, "I'm going to look around for a little bit. See if I can find anything interesting to do. _Auf Wiedersehen_." Without another word, he was gone.

"He's getting on my nerves," Sugden snorted. "Tell me I'm not the only one." Keagan made a noise of acknowledgement, but his attention was focussed on something on the horizon and through the viewfinder of the ever-present camcorder. "See something?" asked Sugden.

"Something's moving," Keagan replied, "can't tell what it is. It might well be another boat." He zoomed in. "It's gone!"

"Must've been a hair on the lens," Sugden let out a big yawn. "I'm hungry. I'm gonna go find something to nosh on. You two coming with me?" Michael nodded. Keagan panned his sights as far as he could, but there was no sign of the obsidian shape to be seen, so he sighed in defeat and turned the camera off. They passed Abbey, who reminded them to keep out of trouble, prompting them all to reply, "Yes, ma'am," as one, which she found amusing, in a cute way, you understand.

She realised too late that moving under the tarpaulin loosened her beret, because a sudden gust of wind took it off her head, but then it struck her that she had not felt the wind picking up, and turned her eyes skyward. A tanned hand was holding the hat above her, and she followed the length of the attached arm along to its source. Abbey was no clairvoyant, but whoever was the owner of the arm better have been prepared to pull back an empty socket if they did that again.

"I'll swap it back for a kiss, Abs," said Tyso Boswell. Abbey nearly gagged.

"Every ship's got its rats," she snarked meanly, snatching the beret away from him and screwing it on her scalp like a bottle top. "I'd thought you dropped off the face of this Earth eight years ago."

"You wound me," Tyso sighed melodramatically, "your words were always like an icy dagger to my poor male heart." He twirled a lock of her dark hair around his index finger, coming close to making contact with the skin of her cheek.

"Take your finger out of there or you won't get it back," she told him dangerously. Tyso just smiled and withdrew, hands up as if in surrender. "And don't try to sweet-talk me now, Tyso. You never believed in it before."

"A man can change his beliefs in eight years," he replied.

"Finally putting on a tie doesn't mean everything's different about you," scowled Abbey. "You still wear that same God-awful aftershave, for instance, and you still don't know how to take the word, _'no,'_ for an answer."

"I must've thought you still remembered our burning desire for each other," Tyso continued to smile, his voice never breaking from that serenely low tone. "When you decided not to take out that injunction you threatened me with I saw it as a testament to that desire."

"Nothing to do with desire, just couldn't afford it," insisted the captain. "So why are you here? Last I heard you'd gotten a job as a civil servant."

"Well, I'm certainly being civil," said Tyso with a bow, "and, actually, my bosses are your bosses. Within NERV's complicated hierarchy, my official title is, _'class 4 special inspector'_."

"That sounds like Section Two."

"I work with them if I'm needed to. I'd tell you more as it's all very interesting, but I'm afraid that I'm not allowed to say more without higher clearance."

"So you're a bureaucrat," Abbey's expression turned malevolent again. "After all that boasting about getting a part in, _'The Avengers,'_ you get to spend your days filling out reports for wankers in grey suits. Must be kinda humbling, yeah?"

Tyso didn't take the bait. Abbey's attempt to bite back at the pompous cretin for what he'd done to her in college ran smack-bang into a dead end, to her immeasurable annoyance. She knew she was being immature. It was almost a decade since, but the mere sight of the man summoned up all those bitter memories of when he broke her heart, and Therese broke his nose in an act of violence so rare as to sound impossible. Inwardly, she was grinning crookedly at that. She kept it off her face.

"Coffee?" he offered.

"Fine, but it's on you," she grumped.

"It's a date, then."

"No! It bloody isn't!"

XXX

Down in the mess hall, the four boys had gotten to a table and were settling in, two on each side. Keagan rewound the film in his camcorder, and flipped the adjustable display screen over. Sugden stopped chewing on his rubbery hamburger and leant over for a closer look. "Keag, what am I actually looking at?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," the sandy-haired boy admitted, "I don't think it's a hair on the lens. There's definitely a big black shape moving across the horizon."

Sugden grabbed a bottle of tomato ketchup and squirted it all over his meat patty. When he replaced the top bun, he had to lick excess sauce off his fingers.

"Do you know how much acid's in that?" Denis sniffed from the opposite side.

"More than the fucks I give?" he asked innocently. "What are you getting at, Keag? You think the Sixth Angel followed our helicopter out here, or the fleet from Germany, without being seen by anybody?"

"I don't know," Keagan sighed. "Mike, you see it, don't you?"

"It might just be another boat in the distance," said Michael. "It's only there for a second."

"Maybe it was a whale breaching," Sugden shrugged. "You could send that video to one of them nature programmes on telly and make a few quid."

"A whale!" Denis scoffed. "Don't be a _Depp_!"

"Well, what do you think it was, smart-arse?" Sugden fumed.

"_Obviously_ one of the admiral's U-boats," replied Denis, in a matter-of-fact way. "An unusually big one, I'll give you that, but that seems the likeliest explanation, if you ask me."

"Probably," Keagan mumbled and switched the device off. "I was just hoping something would happen. Then we'd get a chance to see Unit 02 in action."

"You'll have your chance, trainee pilot," said Denis, then he locked eyes with Michael, who shrunk away nervously, "tell me, Third Child, is it because you're the director's son-"

"_Godson,"_ Michael corrected him.

"Godson," Denis repeated with an acknowledging nod, "anyway, was your surprise recruitment for sentimental reasons on his part, do you think?"

"Not _too_ rude," Sugden mumbled.

"Actually, I did a year of flight training," said Michael. He decided the underhanded parts of his induction would be better unspoken of. "So I think I was lined up at least that long, it could've been longer. I don't know. As for being sentimental…"

His voice trailed off. Sugden and Keagan were pretending not to listen to the conversation. He was grateful to have only a single probing gaze to deal with. He comprehended the Second Child to be a curious and investigative individual. Pursuing answers, to burn away at the cobwebs of ignorance, was itself not an act to be detested, but the methods he employed in this case were blunt, intrusive, as if Denis thought nothing of the sensibilities of those being questioned in the first place. In all probability, he didn't. He waited to be told to finish his sentence, when a firm, invisible force rippled under the floor in waves, dislodging tiles and jangling the rivets holding the chairs together.

"Undersea shockwave!" Denis exclaimed needlessly. "Close too!"

He sprinted off ahead of the rest, grabbing Michael roughly by the sleeve of his jacket and dragging him after. Michael gaped and squawked as his feet scrambled for purchase, first against tiles and then up perforated metal stairs. Sugden was up first and helped Keagan to his feet, and they followed, but found no signs of either boy.

XXX

Those outside were the first to detect the Angel's approach if only by a few scant moments by the sudden and unexpected tidal surges that battered the myriad seafaring vessels. Abbey Creed lost her balance on the stairs and, had she fallen, would have broken her ankle, but Tyso caught her by the wrist in the most timely fashion imaginable. She was pulled back onto her feet, and given a close view of his face, void of the nonchalance he customarily wore, now replaced by serious urgency. He asked if she was all right, and when she confirmed she was, the pair of them mutually decided to find out what had just occurred, then warn Admiral Keiner of it as soon as was humanly doable.

They did not need to look far. Spread out less than a quarter of a mile ahead of them, impeding the fleet's path, there was an elephantine barrier of alien coral, comprised of obsidian, reflective sheets separated only by rings of spikes that were corkscrewed around each other and pointing in all conceivable directions like a barbed wire fence. The stuff glinted in the sunlight so brightly it was almost impossible to look directly into it. The fence embodied a word. The word was, _'pain.'_

"I-I should get to the admiral," said Abbey, "b-before he does anything stupid, but the kids…!"

"I'll go check on them," Tyso interrupted. "Go!" He descended down into the ship's interior before she could argue, like she honestly would in the middle of a clear crisis. All around her there were crewmen racing about their duties, checking the oh-so-vital payload or charging to the bridge to contact the rest of their friends and fleet-mates, setting up whatever kind of shield they could while the other ships, the ones with actual armaments, made ready to return fire. She grabbed a man on his way to the cabin and ordered him to send a message to _Über den Regenbogen_, to tell them she was on her way and to not try any risky moves before it could be determined what manner of enemy they had been confronted with. The crewman started to protest, but Abbey mustered her fiercest, most authoritative look, then shot it right at him. He promptly rescinded his contention and headed off, or would have if he was not tossed clean away from her in the wake of another attack.

Two of the countless points jutting from the coral reef lit up pink. A million more tiny spikes popped out of them, then with a thunderous roar like an unchained beast, they exploded forth into the water, raising perfectly vertical walls of water when they passed the ships and flooding the external decks. Waiting in the dark below, Certari waited in its compressed state, but it was beginning to doubt it would need to enter mortal combat itself. It was having difficulty finding a precise lock on its target, but it had a general idea. It extended its perception, transmitted another silent command, and four more projectiles shot out, cutting open the sides of one boat like a fish in a monger's shop.

Abbey had let herself onto the bridge and sent her message to the admiral herself when Sugden and Keagan burst in. It would be unwise to attempt crossing the gulf between vessels, after seeing at least one of the Sixth Angel's powers in action, so she had taken over this room as her temporary command centre. So long as she got them out of this alive, the captain proved totally willing to tell the men under him to put up, shut up, or try their luck outside. The EuroEVA ship was manned mostly by civilian sailors, with the military contingent being quite minimal in size, so until things got less insane, or at least as far as could be managed in this climate of war against the colossal agents of Heaven themselves, this short but awesome example of fem-kind could do what she pleased. Admiral Keiner was not so accommodating, however, insisting that NERV's den mother keep her dainty nose out of naval warfare until it was dead certain their own power failed, which, he was also quite insistent on emphasising, it would not, despite the torpedoes detonating uselessly in the A.T. Field emitting from the reef. They were lucky to reach even that far. Whatever was directing the flying barbs had remarkable aim, intercepting the warheads so effortlessly, as to render any attempt on it look downright pathetic! The admiral, who in his mind had no choice but take each and every beating as a personal affront, seriously needed his migraine tablets.

Tony Sugden and Keagan Albright burst into the room in a panic and stumbled over one another to get to her.

"Captain Creed!" the smaller boy squawked. "Michael and Denis left us behind! Can't find them anywhere!"

"Slow down," she said and put a firm hand down on either one's shoulder. "I can't understand a word when you're babbling. Did they say where they were going?"

"Not a word, ma'am!" Sugden panted. "They just zipped off!"

"Did you tell Tyso about this?"

"Who?" they both asked, equal parts tired out and befuddled.

"Biggish bloke. Messy barnet. Smells like a gin palace."

"Didn't see anybody like that," Sugden told her. "One of them lot outside said you was up here."

She fought back a scowl. Either they were lying, or that lousy vermin had pulled a fast one. It wouldn't be the first or last time. He had a penchant, a compulsion for deception. She began to wonder where he had really gone, but there was no time, not with a ruddy great monster waiting for them. _You've got bigger fish to fry,_ she told herself, and turned to the member of the communications staff standing closest. He was a mousy man, sat behind his console, looking to all the world like Maya Wadia's long lost twin brother.

"Put the word out," she said, neither knowing nor caring about proper seagoing protocol, "we've two unaccounted for minors on this vessel. When found they're to be brought up to the bridge immediately. Understood?"

The comms-officer answered the affirmative and went about his task. Another two ships were gored by the Angel's stings, and sunk into clouds of purplish mist. _"Thüringen und Bayern sind verloren worden,"_ said the officer beside him, in a report to the admiral.

"_Zobel füllt sich mit Wasser!"_ crackled the open channel. The next explosion signaled the _Zobel's_ destruction.

"_Wie ist der Status unserer Unterseebootkräfte?"_ barked Keiner desperately. _"Stechrochen! Groß Weiß! Kopieren Sie?"_

"_Das ist Stechrochen! Wir haben das Ziel gelegt!"_ came a voice in response, calm but tense. _"Um etwa dreihundert Meter unter uns, auf dem Meeresboden! Es sitzt gerade dort!"_

The 212A submarines opened fire with their own torpedoes. Down here they were safe from the spikes, but their weapons bounced away from the Angel's hunkered mass nonetheless.

_Is the Angel after Unit 02?_ thought Abbey, watching helplessly as the slaughter continued. Keagan was getting it all on tape, Sugden was indignantly snarling and yelling, pointing out how dumb it was to be carrying an EVA and having no way to use it. _The EVA._ Something clicked in her brain, and as if on cue, the tarpaulin sitting on the flight deck began to wriggle, then it rose up. Metallic noises, liquid-smooth and steam-cool rumbled from within the combatant's cybernetic guts. It stood erect in crimson and dark gold. Its head was long, angular and sloping, with two ridges that started above its high, trollish nose and continued as two wide arcs to the back, where they united into a downward trail of saurian spines. Four emerald eyes fixed on the barrier ahead. Its tarpaulin hung around its body like the tattered cloak of some wandering nomad, but the billowing sack and fluttering tails did naught to conceal the name it wore on its polished pectoral. _"MASTEMA."_

[Atlas Plug – _"Crimson Phoenix"_ – 2 Days or Die, 2004]

Abbey's despair vanished in that instant. They had a fighting chance. She tuned the microphone to the entry plug's internal channel. "Denis, is that you in there?"

"The one and only, _Fräulein_ Creed!" crackled the device. "Did _Stechrochen_ say the Angel was three-hundred metres in front?"

"Yes, but be cautious," said Abbey. "You're still wearing type B equipment. If you fall in, your EVA will cease functioning."

"That won't be a problem," said Denis, "I've been trained for this. First off, let's sort out the problem of power." Without another word, Mastema bounded nimbly into the air and came to land upon _Über den Regenbogen's_ flight deck. Under the robot's weight the ship tilted, dropping a number of aircraft straight in the drink. It threw off its cape and attached the umbilical cable that had been brought earlier. In the cockpit, the timer stuck, and an external current fed the robot's systems. It was still a finite resource, given the fact there were no constant electrical conduits accessible on open water, but there was a hell of a lot more juice to be had in it than in dinky, built-in batteries.

"INCOMING!"

Abbey back-pedalled. She certainly had not expected Michael to be in the entry plug as well. "You're in there too?" she asked stupidly. Michael didn't respond directly, but she did get two different voices yelping in unison as another flurry of spikes soared towards them. Mastema propelled itself up and away, but left the deck open for the grizzliest acupuncture procedure in history. Keiner was yelling words Abbey did not understand but she suspected it was about money, responsibility or the like. She had bigger things to consider.

"No weapons," she mumbled, "and if we can't get that thing up here, we'll be running in circles until we tire out." Her eyes followed the brown cable looping and winding in the air like a polymer-sheathed serpent, and the seed of an idea was hatched.

"Captain, not to be rude but," Keagan was cut off as the cable scraped across another ship's deck, shoving another squadron's load of fighters overboard. He let out a pained whine. "Those poor things! They deserved better!"

"You've got a plan?" Sugden asked her, noting the odd way her eyes were twinkling. "Hope it's a good'un!"

"It's bloody good," Abbey assured him, but before she got the chance to elaborate, they were all rocked off their feet. She wrestled somebody's head out of her chest and scrambled for a purchase, followed by the boys, and they all stared out of the windows in stunned wordlessness.

"Did…Unit 02…" said Keagan once he found his voice, "just fall in the water…?"

"There goes the planet!" Sugden groaned, and slapped his palm over his eyes. "Our last hope's turned into a fishing lure!"

"_Fishing lure,"_ Abbey repeated under her breath. "Tony, you're a bleeding genius! We can still win this!"

Sugden blushed beet red.

Certari's attention swivelled up, not to the shadows cast by the bulks floating overhead as before, but to the thing that was sinking just ahead. It held the shape of a man, but was not one, and there was something about its resonance, like a scent on the psychic plain, that commanded the Angel to move. It could detect voices from inside, two of them arguing, and that was when it realised that this was one of those demons, the destroyers of its kind. Priority One. Certari rearranged its exo-skeleton into its submarine state, then squeezed its air-sacs for all they were worth, whooshing straight at Unit 02 like a rocket.

Denis and Michael, dressed in identical burgundy plug suits, were pressed forward over the console by the inertia. Mastema had one arm over the Angel's bird-like head, its nose leading like the tip of an arrow. Denis was yanking on the joysticks, trying to get his EVA to act, but all he got in return was a low clunking from something mechanical, and a dull, digitised voice repeating, _"System error. System error."_

"Don't just swim there!" he snapped at his passenger.

"What do you expect me to do?" Michael retorted.

"Aren't you the famous Third Child?" Denis was growing frantic as they were carried beneath the fleet. If they had taken some time to look down they might have seen the crumbling wreckages of the boats that had been destroyed that day already. "Pull a miracle! Do magic! Whatever you do!" This was the worst day in Denis' life. His chance to show off just how truly amazing his skills were, to display the power of the world's first honest-to-goodness true production model Evangelion, was in ruins. It was the most advanced battle-construct of its type in history, equipped for every eventuality, but it wasn't water-proof! He was panicking, he was angry, and he was waiting to be saved by the one he was supposed to be showing up in the first place.

They felt a forceful pull that nearly separated them from the contents of their stomachs, and the Angel began to circle.

"Michael, Denis," Abbey's voice crackled around them, "we are going to recall Unit 02's cable and drag you and the Angel to the surface, but we need you to keep hold of it! Don't let it get away!"

"How're we supposed to hold on if we can't move?" asked Denis.

"We'll _make_ it move," Michael chimed in. "Do it, Abbey!"

What ensued was a truly vicious tug-of-war. On one side, there were mighty hydraulic motors straining to reel in the rubbery, wiry mass of Unit 02's umbilicus, stretching it taught. On the other side were the raw muscle and fury of the Sixth Angel, it was dangerously determined to drag them all to a sunken grave. Denis found his attempt to prove himself nose-diving deep into uncomfortable territory. The beast was no longer concentrating properly on any one thing, so when the tangled black wall shot its rockets, it did so without coordination. It was easier to defend the flagship, they could even deflect some of the barbs with their own well-placed shots, but if there was any method of discerning their trajectory before, that had since gone out of the window. The once proud maritime force had assumed more than a passing resemblance to a crumpet, and amidst the chaos, Tyso Boswell seized the chance to escape, bidding an incensed Abbey Creed farewell from the cockpit of his customised float-plane just before it ascended. The two Children mistook their commander's exasperated squawk as a sign that she herself had come under attack.

"We have to turn its head upwards," Michael growled through a wall of clenched teeth. Denis' hands were on the joysticks and Michael's hands were on top of his, and both boys were willing with all their might for the EVA to do something other than be an anchor.

"Turn you bastard!" Denis hissed. It became a chant shared by the two of them. _"Turn! Turn! Turn! TURN!"_ Two purposes shone in resonance. Two hearts combined. Mastema felt them both and it answered. The red robot snarled, and the horizontal panels comprising its helmet broke apart, revealing four angry eyes, aglow with intent. Its motions were minimal, but suddenly the muscles in the EVA's slender limbs bulged. It stuck its heels in and wrapped its arms around the Angel's spindly throat. It applied physical force, enhanced by its A.T. Field, and bent the monster's thorny mass so that its propulsion carried both rider and reluctant mount straight up. The pilots braced, and then with a deafening splash, they were taken out of the sea, into the air, up, up, higher, higher! They were spiralling in the atmosphere almost two hundred metres over the ships, then before they knew it they were in freefall, and the Angel was transforming again.

Impossibly thin, tall and dainty legs terminating in pinprick feet, struck the water, but rather than sink it was supported by sheets of ice that materialised directly under it. Certari was the Angel of Winter, after all. Mastema settled with both hands grasping the spindly neck, its legs draped over a trunk of intermingled geometric shapes. Hanging down below, it felt like miles to the scared, nauseated Children inside, was what had to be described as a big pendulum, with a little spike on the bottom and many eyes swirling over its black surface. The EVA looked up, and saw its two beaks rising, the shorter went clockwise, the longer counter.

"Janus," Denis whispered, "the two-headed god."

"God nothing," said Michael, "our job's to kill these things. So let's kill it and go home! I'm fucking sick of the fucking bloody piss-wanking ocean!"

"Michael!" Abbey was taken aback by his torrential cursing.

"Well I am!" he snapped.

"On that we can agree, Third," said Denis. The joysticks were shoved forward harshly and Mastema awkwardly stood, the soles of its feet bending as it sought a grip on precarious ground.

"Abbey," Michael said over the channel, "whatever you plan to do, do it! Don't worry about us!"

"Understood," her voice replied. They all knew she would worry of course. It was the human component of her, the best part of her, really, but in this situation they had to rely on another set of instincts. Soldier's instincts, and at last it appeared Michael's had awoken. Or perhaps it was that Denis was the one who believed their task came before their personal welfare and their sharing of L.C.L., not unlike symbolic sharing of water, as witnessed in certain archaic customs, had allowed the Third Child to leech some of that dutifulness from him. Whichever it may have been, they knew their role to play, and Captain Abbey Creed knew hers. The next they knew, the ice under the Angel's feet combusted in a shower of shards. It trembled, sunk a bit, then worked to generate new supports. Mastema was reaching for the angular cage in the middle of its neck, in which floated a rotating crimson core. Unfortunately, the bombardment from the fleet did nothing to stop the pace of its beaks and before the EVA could slide its fingers through to grab its prize, the two points met at the twelve o'clock position, then its heads were swallowed by what looked a lot like a localised black hole. It did not pull things in, but emitted invisible waves that threw Mastema clear and engulfed three more ships in upward-climbing explosions of cross-shaped light.

The clamour of voices over the channel from the now pitifully sized group below was lost on the screaming boys. Mastema was hurled away from the Angel, and would have been quite lost to the will of the sea had its cable not gotten trapped between spikes on the shoulder. The red EVA swung like Tarzan towards the pendulum and snapped its hands around that downward-most protrusion. Mastema's legs swung and scrabbled in mid-air, in an unsuccessful bid to find a solid surface. It is never nice to know that the one thing saving you from a long drop is how long your grasp holds out, especially in this particular case, when their lifeline was severed by the sharp surfaces that it was being dragged along, and the raggedy stump barely held on. One hard enough tug from gravity would end it.

"We need to get a better hold or we'll drop!" Michael panted.

"Prog knife!" Denis grunted. It was with great risk that Unit 02 took one hand off. Its left spaulder opened and out came a drastically scaled up German army KM2000. The knife went live and Mastema drove it with all the strength it could muster up into the side of the pendulum, skewering one of the eyes like a pig. The Angel's heads reconstituted and it began to scream. The boys realised at around the same time that what they took for the core was nothing but a ruse, a decoy that would have succeeded if the monster had opted to focus its attention on them rather than the efforts of the grown-ups. It was a slip they would not give it time to regret. Increasing its grip on the bottom spike, Mastema forced the blade in deeper, twisted it amidst blue blood and tissue, then yanked straight down. A stream of indigo gore washed over the EVA's arm from the tear and the robot adjusted itself accordingly, digging its digits into the hewn flesh. Denis, Michael and Mastema delved a fist right inside the gooey crevasse, felt for the organ, and then pulled with all their collective strength.

The ice sheets ruptured yet again, and this time Certari did nothing to save itself. It couldn't. Its functions screeched to a halt the moment its heart was wrenched from its carcass. The light went out in its four eyes, and whatever adhered its many parts together failed. The Angel crumbled into a rain of sharp, obsidian edges that dissipated into powdery black snow, floating harmlessly like foam on the sea. The wall joined the decay barely a second after. Mastema crashed across _Über den Regenbogen's_ flight deck. It slumped, as if exhausted, and it then went silent.

Michael, Denis, Sugden, Keagan and Abbey all released a sigh of relief. Nobody said anything. Admiral Keiner and what was left of his subordinates were being allowed a few moments to mourn their lost friends and colleagues. Abbey offered a few kind words, which the old salt thanked her for, then said in as candid and civil a way as he could, that the EVA had best be worth all the lives its mere existence had cost, and that after making port he never wanted to see that wretched thing again. He missed the days when warfare was something that he and other mortals could understand. Human conflicts were all terrible, terrible things, but they were preferable compared to the alternative. Abbey conceded him that, and though they did not part as friends _per se_, they had earned one another's respect. He had not seen an ability to command under pressure like hers for many years, and never from someone so young as she, and she could recognise when somebody genuinely suffered for others. She had been witness to cretins who were good at sympathetic speeches before. They were always flat, using the same words, but this man was not one of them. She could never hate someone with that capacity.

Remarkably, they put in at Southampton on schedule, and were met by a convoy whose representatives were more than a shade discommoded to find Unit 02 splayed out haphazardly, instead of in its proper holdings. Therese's distinctive Jag was also there, and Abbey joined the scientist as she read a document forwarded to her laptop computer from the entry plug's memory banks. She did not say very much, but Abbey knew how to read her best friend's body language with relative ease. She could tell Therese was engrossed in the figures on the display. She opted not to disturb her. It meant she could enjoy this brief rest. She had a little loose change in her inside pocket, so she bought a chilled drink and a _Mars_ bar. Michael, who still had on Denis' spare plug-suit, sat with his legs dangling off the edge of the docks, and looked quite relaxed as he talked to Sugden and Keagan. Denis was standing apart from them and looking around his new environment with a detached curiosity.

She plonked herself back into the Jag's front passenger seat, cracked open her drink and let it pour down her throat, which was hoarse from shrieking orders, caressing strained muscles. No more boats. No more Sixth Angel. No more angry old fossils. No more Tyso _Fucking_ Boswell.

Bliss.

XXX

Oliver Haddo descended from the astral lands, where he dwelled as a negative entity in black-and-white, approximately sixteen minutes before the gypsy man entered his lair. He crossed over rivers of light, and beneath the arch of the spears held erect by statues of Units 00 and 01, and came to stand at the throne of NERV's king. A weighty, industrial case was placed onto his deck, and Haddo opened it without a hint of hesitation. He had trained long and hard not to show his excitement to others, it was part of the stern image that allowed him to rule with that gloved fist of iron, but what he held here now was as treasure to him. Not of the material kind, but of purpose and symbolism unmatched. He hazarded to wonder if this could be compared to opening the Ark of the Covenant. Icy mist rolled out in waves over the desk, and the weak, yellow light of artificial lamps integrated into the lid was unleashed, painting the two men in the room like _Athena Parthenos_. He dared not lift the delicate bakelite box, barely larger than a matchbox, from its holdings in the centre just yet. He wanted to bask in the triumph for a while first.

"You know," said Tyso Boswell nonchalantly, "I risked my life for weeks while we agonised over how to pull off this job just right. It's nice to finally see what it's all about. This baby is the keystone to the Human Instrumentality Project, yes?"

"Correct, Mister Boswell," said Haddo, peeling the skin-tight layer of cloth from his left hand, "this is, in fact, the key to everything. It is the progenitor of all our struggles. The Holy Grail. You should feel very privileged. Not many get the opportunity to witness this ritual."

Tyso leaned closer, intrigued. Haddo's bare palm pressed over the box. He closed his eyes, and the ceremony of transference began.

[Frank Sinatra – _"Fly Me to the Moon"_ – It Might as Well Be Swing, 1964]


End file.
